The Marked
by Flutist Girl
Summary: There was a glow in his eyes, but from something different than mako. She couldn't place what it was, but it seared her to the core. What was it in this child that captivated her so? The young buddings of fate, perhaps, or destiny? Sephiroth centric
1. A Sinister Arrival

The Marked - Chapter One

A newborn baby was wailing.

The sound didn't fit. It was wrong, a disturbance to the orderly regularity of the gray, solemn, dignified establishment. The inhabitants of the science department at Shinra continued with their various tasks, moving fluidly from here to there, transporting data or equipment, making dry small talk about the weather, as they always did; day in, day out, every day of every week of every month of every year…

But not one, from the interns to the professors, could deny that their hair was on end, an electric shock running up their spines, making them stand a little taller. There was a chill in the room, an unnatural sensation that was perceived as coldness, but in all actuality might have been something else; anticipation, or a spectral premonition of fear…

The child created of the mysterious and sinister Jenova Project had been born.

The sound couldn't have been as loud as it was perceived; such a thing would be impossible from such tiny lungs. And yet it ricocheted against the sterile tile, louder and louder as an echo, perhaps not literally in volume, but for the abnormality of the sound. It loomed omnipresent, overpowering, chilling to the marrow of the bone.

No one would admit that their hearts were trembling, melting with sympathy, and so they continued on in cold regularity despite the cries, few caring enough to help, and those that were kept from action by the promise of trouble from the father, or worse, the child itself.

There were only two who dared to gossip about this abnormality: one, a young intern named Lavina, who was not possibly older than twenty, with earthen brown hair and vibrant spring-green eyes framed by thin, modest oval glasses. She had stumbled in late for work and was confused by her surroundings. On the one hand, her eyes told her it was business as usual. Nothing had changed from yesterday. Doctors walked the halls in pressed white laboratory coats, stiff and tall, going about their research business, just as they always did. Carts were pushed from here to there and back again.

But her ears rang in alarm. This was cruelty! Would no one step forth on behalf of the suffering child?

"What's going on?" Lavina asked.

None of the doctors would answer. Most shrugged at her and continued on their way, flipping through clipboards and discussing with other doctors. One even said, "What noise?"

Were they all deaf?

Lavina eventually went to Adira, a fellow intern who was just punching in her time card. She was the gossip of the research department. If she wouldn't speak, no one would.

"Adira," Lavina implored. "What's a baby doing in the research labs?"

Adira looked up from her time card, thrusting it into her lab coat without regard to how it crumpled. She frowned, looking as if she was just now realizing it. "My guess is that Dr. Crescent's little monster has finally arrived."

Lavina waited in silence, waiting for Adira to continue.

"Look, no one's surprised. The thing's due. _Over_due. Had to come sooner or later."

"Well what is it doing in the labs?" Lavina pressed. "This is no place for a birth!"

Adira shrugged. "It's the spawn of science. I actually think it's quite appropriate."

Lavina swallowed her retort, forced her tone to be casual. "Well, that's…exciting. Dr. Crescent is probably very happy. Is it a boy or a girl?"

Adira tilted her had back and laughed sardonically, an odd disapproving discord against the baby's pleading cries. "_Boy_ or _girl_?" she spat hatefully. "The thing probably isn't even _human_!"

But, human or not, the infant was in pain. Its cries were melting Lavina's heart, and she ached for the child. These were no newborn squalls of discomfort, but of genuine hurt or fear.

"Who's caring for it?" she asked quietly.

She shrugged casually. "Probably Hojo." She sobered a little, contemplating more on what she had just said. "I don't pity the thing…"

"Won't anyone help it?"

"It's a _monster_, Lavina. What don't you get about that? It'll probably bite your head off or something. It's a _freak_, an _abomination_, a spawn of the Jenova Project. It exists only to aid Hojo's research. I wouldn't sympathize with it."

Lavina couldn't bring herself to believe it. Those cries were of a suffering infant, not a monster.

"You're stupid to even think of it," Adira said, sensing Lavina's growing resolve to act.

"Come with me?" Lavina asked fearfully. Truth be told, she was terrified herself.

"Not for all of Gaia. You go yourself." Adira coldly walked away, joining the others in their stubborn denial of the heartbreaking wails.

Lavina stood stunned. Was she the only one in Shinra, or even all of Gaia, to care?

As her feet carried her closer to the child without her consent, she tried to name all the reasons why it _shouldn't_ matter to her. First, it most certainly wasn't _her_child, or even tied to her by family bloodlines or friendships. She had an aversion to infants resulting from the time she had accidently dropped her three-week old infant niece. Babies had always tended to distrust her anyway, even before that. She probably wouldn't be able to do the slightest degree of good for the poor thing, and Hojo would be furious when or if he found her meddling with his long awaited, perfect specimen.

Maybe Adira and all the other Shinra staff were right. Maybe the child was a monster.

She arrived at the threshold to Hojo's laboratory without really realizing that she had been instinctively drawn there. She was shocked to find her hand on the doorknob, and even more startled when it turned without her exerting any force on it. Quickly, she ducked to the side just as the door was ripped open from the inside.

"No…_No!_Hojo you can't…_stop it!_ Stop it, please…._give me my son!_"

"Get her out of here, she's clearly lost her senses."

"_No!_ Give me my son…let me hold him…please, _just once!"_

Six or seven smartly dressed Turks came out the door, paying no heed to Lavina, who cowered behind the open door. Between them was dragged a brunette woman in a hospital gown, struggling against the hands that held her, not even afraid of the guns they sometimes pressed to her temple or throat.

It froze Lavina's blood to see the kind, gentle Dr. Crescent so desperate, so torn and beaten. Her hair was disheveled, her face without the soft rose tint of life, so milky pale and transparent that she might have been an animated cadaver. Tears streamed from her dead eyes, the only spark behind the amber depths fueled by sheer desperation. Her hands, trembling, reached out toward the room, grappling thin air as she choked in her shallow breaths. She was too weak to support herself, and was dragged roughly and without consideration for her condition. Still, she fought against the strong hands that seized her with every last spark of life she had in her dying body, and would fight until the Turks disposed of her or she was spent of her life's energy.

Lavina stayed hidden by the door, frozen, only able to watch as Lucrecia was carried away, knowing that she would be disposed of now that she had completed her sole task of carrying and bearing the child of the Jenova Project. Now, she was useless, and would be discarded as a broken tool that had outlived its purpose.

Lucrecia knew this, Lavina saw it in her eyes, and yet she did not plead for her life, only asked to hold her tiny son once before she went to meet her fate.

The woman looked through her veil of matted hair to meet Lavina's eyes directly. Lavina didn't breathe, worried that perhaps the woman would betray her to the Turks.

Instead, she left Lavina with one last broken plea.

"Please…my son…save my son…"

The Turks paid no attention to who their captive was addressing, probably thinking her too far gone in the fires of insanity and delirium to be salvaged, or else that she was calling to her coworkers who moved monotonously around her. None of the other doctors paid any heed to the woman or the Turks who dragged her away, not even sparing her a sympathetic glance. Perhaps, to those whom she had known and worked with, she had been dead ever since she had conceived the fated child.

"_Please_," she cried as she disappeared from Lavina's view. "Save him!"

Lavina, unable to deny this woman her final request, nodded despite herself.

Lucrecia closed her eyes in release.

Lavina didn't know whether to take that as a sign of her surrender to looming death or not.

Professor Hojo stormed out next, at first seeming to follow hot on the trail of the Turks, but then turned, disappearing into the supply room, chuckling darkly, his beady black eyes glimmering with sadistic anticipation of plans and hypothesis that he could now test on the baby.

Lavina's hand gripped the door to the laboratory before it could swing closed and lock after the Professor's exit.

Inside, the product of the Jenova Project still cried in pain and fear.

It was a call that Lavina could no longer resist.

* * *

A/N: And so begins The Marked.

I will try my best to document my own ideas of what Sephiroth's childhood, adolescence, and young-adulthood were like and still make it compatible with the games (Crisis Core, Before Crisis, Last Order, etc.) although I feel it fair to warn you that I have not played any of them. (Though I do have Advent Children and am familiar with all the cutscenes of CC) Yes, I will include characters such as Angeal and Genesis (but I have to get there first!).

This story was meant to be a prequel to my other story, Broken Wings, but you will be able to read it independently. The only way this will tie to my other works is my OC Aralyn, who will emerge in a few chapters here.


	2. Little Stranger

The Marked - Chapter Two

The lights had been turned off, and the only illumination came from the eerie glow of the mako prisons, in which dangled deformed figures that once, though it was a stretch of the imagination to believe so, might have been human. Lavina swore that the temperature must have dropped fifteen degrees even from that of the hall. Her hand, which she fearfully extended in the room, was tingling from more than just the sudden cold.

She clenched her eyes shut, finding blindness preferable to the mako's luminescence and the darkness, and pressed her palm flat to the wall, moving it up and down the whitewashed stone in search of a light switch. Surely whatever lay hidden in the darkness couldn't be as bad once it was unveiled…

She forced herself not to amend her statement.

_This is no place for a child to be born…_

First she slipped one arm inside, and then moved a foot to be her doorstop so she could survey the wall with both sets of tentative fingertips. When she found nothing within her arms' length, she instinctively moved a step outward from the doorframe, not realizing until the door slammed shut with grave finality, the sound of a tomb being sealed, that she had crept all the way inside.

Her hands seized the handle in alarm and she screamed, hysteria taking over. She firmly planted both feet, trying to rip the door free as she rammed the handle up and down to no avail. She was locked inside.

It took her a while to compose herself, for her surroundings were something from a nightmare. She hadn't realized how rapid and shallowly she had been breathing until her lungs screamed for air. Shuddering in fright and cold, she slowly sucked in the dry, sterile air until her chest was no longer feeling encircled by constricting steel shackles, though her heart didn't slow its rapid pace.

But there, tucked into a niche behind a desk and file cabinets, a tiny figure writhed in the mako light, choking on its own breath, letting out pitifully weak, mewling wails when it found the strength to breathe. The tiniest hands Lavina had ever seen were reaching everywhere, at her, at _anyone_, as its equally small feet flailed uselessly.

Lavina stilled, overcome with sympathy for the helpless little creature. All her fear drained, and in its place was a dark-tinted wonder. Here was supposedly the larval form of the strongest man to ever live, and he couldn't even breathe properly.

It should have been ironic, something to smirk at.

It broke her heart.

She no longer had fears or doubts about the child. He would do her no harm, not when he couldn't even sustain himself. Her heart cried for the trembling little boy, and, with hands ready to receive him, she approached.

It was no wonder that the child was crying. The little boy had been set on his back on a metal cart usually used to wheel supplies around the building. With no railing on the cart, it was a good thing that the boy could not control his mobility yet, for if he had scooted a few inches, he would have fallen three feet to the tile floor. The baby had a scrap of some cloth thrown hastily over him, but it was thin, too thin to keep him warm. At his head, a tiny hospital gown was crumpled; perhaps Hojo had meant to dress him, but had been preoccupied with making sure his wife was properly disposed of. His eyes were clenched shut, little wet tears leaving shiny trails on his perfect cheeks.

This precious, new little life had been cast aside, forgotten, set down carelessly.

Lavina shrugged her white lab coat off her shoulders. She had a lavender sundress on underneath, so she would be warm enough, though her arms and calves would be bared to the biting cold. She folded it messily, not really caring about neatness now, and picked him up with hesitant hands, laying the wriggling child onto the coat.

_He should have been received in a warm blanket in the first place, _she thought. She looked at her starched, pristine white lab coat, knowing that it would never serve to warm him much, but it was all she had, the only thing she could offer to the baby.

It was a harsh, bitter foreshadowing that the child's first blanket was a lab coat.

She quickly tucked the edges close around him, wrapping the boy tightly so he felt secure. As he was bound, the boy stilled, his cries turning to broken whimpers and soft, hiccoughing sobs.

Now that she had done all she could to make the boy warm, she set him in the crook of her arms, holding him tightly, pressing his tiny body to her heart. She rocked her body back and forth soothingly, bouncing just slightly as she whispered to the child. "Hush," she cooed softly. "Shh…it's okay, little one. Don't cry…I'm here….I'm here…."

She fell silent as she truly beheld the tiny little miracle for the first time.

His skin was milky pale, flawless in color and complexion, as cold as marble. Despite his shivering, he still had an immaculate aura about him, a feeling of quiet, budding strength pulsing through his tiny, frail body. Some newborns looked awkward, but his features were as perfect as if they had been hand-sculpted by a master artist. He glowed with new life and serene innocence. His downy newborn hair was the color of moonlight, shimmering in her hands, as light and silky as a dream.

Lavina felt as if she held an infant seraph, that at any moment she would wake to find he was only a fleeting vision.

"What are you?" she asked the child in wonder and awe. She ran a finger over his thin eyebrows, which looked to be a fine dusting of starlight, a hue lighter and softer than his hair. She touched one pale cheeks with her fingertips to feel that he was solid, a real baby, as real as she was, not a phantom apparition.

She let one finger alight on the tip of his small nose, and he opened his mouth, probably expecting to be fed, revealing a very pink little tongue. When he wasn't fed as he had expected to be, he softly moaned and opened his eyes for the first time to see who was doing him this injustice.

There was a glow in his emerald eyes, but from something different than mako. She couldn't place what it was, but it seared her to the core. What was it in this child that captivated her so? The young buddings of fate, perhaps, or destiny?

It was those burning eyes that made her think that perhaps there was something very dark to fear in the core of this tiny seraph.

"What are you?" Lavina asked again, this time more in fear.

The boy only gazed at her with those startling eyes, blinking innocently.

Lavina sighed deeply and readjusted him so he lay on her shoulder. She rubbed and patted his back, hoping that some of the friction would warm him at least a little, as he still quivered occasionally.

A lot ran through her mind in those moments of silence in the mako light. What was she doing? This baby wasn't hers. If she was caught, she probably would be arrested for trespassing on ShinRa property for holding him. There was no doubt in her mind that she was in dangerous territory for her small acts of kindness for the newborn.

And yet, if she didn't help him, who would? From the looks of how he had been cast aside in the cold and darkness on a metal cart, certainly not Hojo. If she left now, was the boy's fate to be raised in such a cold, unfeeling way?

And why was she caring anyway?

"What's your name, hmm?" she asked the child as she rocked him, as if he could answer. She almost wouldn't be surprised if he had, so strong was the intelligence and foreign influence in the depths of his eyes, but the only sounds he made were the warm little puffs of breath against her shoulder. Lavina chuckled softly and got to her feet.

Lavina strolled over to the desk, bouncing the boy gently as she walked, and picked up an open manila file that had been hastily filled out in red ink. Intrigued, she moved back toward the mako light and the cart so she could read by the light of the Lifestream.

All the baby's statistics had been faithfully, though rapidly, recorded. His weight and size were healthy, and all his physical features indicated that Lucrecia had undergone an average birth to give life to a normal baby. Lavina knew without peering at the peculiar specifics that this had not been the case.

On page three of the report, in a handwriting that Lavina knew wasn't Hojo's, was written in an ink as dark as blood _Name: Sephiroth – "Pathway to God"._

It seemed that Lucrecia's final defiance of her husband had been to give her son a name.

"Sephiroth?" Lavina said, liking the sound of the name and noting how well it seemed to fit. "And it seems you're a little godling after all." It didn't surprise her.

Smiling benevolently, she softly kissed the top of his head, and only then did the last of Sephiroth's chills cease.

She was so absorbed in warming and loving the child that she didn't notice Hojo's return until the scientist turned the lights on, blinding Lavina and baby Sephiroth and catching the young nurse red-handed with the scientist's newest specimen.

"What are you doing with my specimen?"

Little Sephiroth began to wail at the sound of the professor's voice.

* * *

A/N: Uh oh....caught red handed by deh HOJO! I don't envy Lavina's position.

I'm sorry it took me so blasted long to post. I've seriously been working on this like mad, but baby Sephy-kins is impossible to describe! I'm still not happy with what I have now, (it does him no justice --- I mean, if he's so perfect as a full grown man, imagine him as a baby! CUTENESS!!! ^.^ ), but I'll take care of that later.

Oh, and also AP and CATS testing kept me away. But it's done, and I only have a few weeks left of school. I'm considering doing a suicide writing dash over the summer, which means I force myself to publish a chapter a day, but that might kill me. I don't know, I'm still chewing on it.

Anyway, Motherland is up too, and I will update that soon as well.

Happy reading and thank you for the support! E-cheese to all! I will write soon!

............If Seph doesn't kill me for calling him cute...................


	3. Plea for the Innocent

The Marked - Chapter Three

Lavina clutched little Sephiroth to her, shielding his tiny, frail body as much as she could. Despite this act of bravery, she knew that she didn't look to be the heroine she wished she could be. She was trembling, and not from the cold. She could only breathe in gasps through her mouth; she knew he could hear, perhaps he could hear her racing heart as well.

"_What_," Hojo repeated slowly, disdainfully peering at her through glasses that glinted evilly in the lights, "are you doing with my prize specimen?"

She stood stunned and speechless, unable to do anything except slowly step back, knowing that soon she would have no room left to retreat.

"I will take him back now, thank you," Hojo said, leering, his tone very impolite.

"No," she squeaked. Lavina winced. It sounded worse than she'd expected. She felt very small and insignificant beneath his gaze, like a bug waiting to be crushed by an irate being.

Hojo sighed in impatience. He turned his back on her for a moment, which didn't ease her fears any. Her fears were justified. Hojo had gone to an intercom by the door, pressed the button, and said, "Security, could you send some more Turks down here? Thank you." It was less of a request and more of a demand, and the thanks were so poison that he may as well have snarled a threat instead.

Lavina, to her ultimate shame, began to cry.

Hojo took no heed of her tears, glided eerily over to her and pried the wriggling Sephiroth from her arms. She released him with a pitiful, weak sob, her heart torn as the baby's wails turned to wrenching screams. She crumpled, unable to stand upright in the presence of the professor any longer.

Through watery eyes, Lavina watched as Hojo carelessly set Sephiroth on the same metal cart on which she had first discovered the infant. His cries quieted as his skin came into contact with the cold metal, and he began to quiver anew. Though still protesting, his cries were weak, hoarse, broken.

"Please, stop," Lavina pleaded to the heartless scientist, who was preparing an injection of some glowing green fluid, doubtless for the child. "You can't…he's just a baby!"

"I will not encourage weakness by sparing him," the scientist retorted coldly. He flicked the syringe with the tips of his fingers, nodding in satisfaction once the air bubbles had dissipated. "Coddling him will only make him weak and sentimental."

Lavina could not say anything. She began to fear for her own life as well as the welfare of the little baby on the cart. How long would it be until the Turks arrived? What would they do to her?

"H-He's hungry," Lavina said weakly, listening still to the baby's cries.

"I will feed him later," Hojo said without emotion, perhaps deaf to little Sephiroth's pleadings.

"He's hungry _now_," she whispered in near silence. "And he's cold. Couldn't you at least dress him in something proper?"

This made Hojo pause. Lavina feared that her terror would make her pass out. She didn't know how angry she had made him, for she could only see the back of his starched white lab coat and the thin black ponytail that traced his spine. She waited for an eternity for him to lash out at her, or send her away, or do _something_…

The Turks arrived, ready and armed and quickly surrounded her. Lavina screamed, unable to contain her fright any longer.

"Stop," Hojo said simply.

The Turks lowered their guns in response to the scientist's order, waiting in eerie stillness for their new commands.

"You are dismissed, all of you."

The Turks did not question. Lavina did.

Hojo strode forward and seized Sephiroth roughly, handling him with briskness inappropriate for a tender newborn, then walked away. Lavina was left in the cold, silent, pristine laboratory on her own for many long minutes. She couldn't get on her feet to run, to escape out the open door.

Hojo returned, his expression one of impatient calm. The man gripped her forearm with cold, bony hands and jerked her to her feet. Lavina could not waver as Hojo dragged her forward, out of the laboratory, into the halls, down a few floors in the elevator. He said nothing during the entire trip, only forced her onward, never looking back.

The scientist shoved her into a white room and let her get her bearings back. Lavina collapsed on a metal stool and examined her surroundings to ease her racing heart. The floor was tile, the ceiling and walls a plain, harsh white. Along one wall was a sink in a metal counter, with cabinets of silver above and below it. Besides the stool she sat on, the room was furnished only with a glass cradle, wherein little Sephiroth flailed against his thin white bed sheets, grunting with the effort of ridding himself of their bondage. There were a few windows, slivers in the whitewashed brick wall, none of them wide enough to slide tiny Sephiroth through, all of them barred with steel. Through them spilled a diluted, pale sunlight through the smog of the city, a lighting no better than the florescent fixtures above her.

"I have better things to do than care for an infant," Hojo began without introduction. "You are to be his caretaker."

Lavina looked up, stunned, first meeting Hojo's deathly serious gaze, then looking at the tiny baby in the cold cradle. Could she really take on such an enormous responsibility as an infant's life?

"I'm not qualified--"

He continued regardless. He was not interested in hearing her excuses. "I expect him to be well but not overly fed and kept clean at all times. You are to let him sleep only what he needs, but no excessive napping. In the times he is awake, I expect you to stimulate his intellectual growth. I will provide textbooks for you to read to him and lectures for him to listen to as he sleeps."

"Lectures? _Textbooks_? What do you think Sephiroth is?"

"_Sephiroth_ _is_ _a_ _god_ _in_ _embryo_!" Hojo hissed, angered by Lavina's outburst. "Above all, you will keep in mind that he is _my_ child. I will have him raised however I see fit. If you act upon your differences in opinion, I will have you disposed of. I will not have him treated like a typical infant so he can grow lazy, sentimental, and fat. Are there any questions?"

The way he asked it seemed to discourage inquiries, but Lavina found it in herself to humbly ask the few questions she did have. "Sir," she squeaked out, "the gowns you've given him, they're terribly cold."

"And this is a problem?"

"He'll be terribly uncomfortable, and he might get sick."

"I will not allow him to get sick. As for his comfort, than never was and never will be a factor. He will learn nothing by being coddled and content. My decision stands; he will wear only the gowns."

"Then surely some suitable bedding for when he sleeps…"

"And make him develop a fondness of his cradle? It will encourage excessive napping. His is adequate."

"How can you say that?" Lavina cried as she bolted to her feet, her voice bold with desperation for tiny Sephiroth's sake. "He's trembling!"

"If you're quite done with your useless complaints, I would have you consider that he is _my_ property. I know what is best for him. If you can't understand this, maybe you will understand that you are _disposable_. If you won't do according to my orders, I will find another to care for Sephiroth. Are there any _more_ questions?"

Lavina sat down again. "No, sir," she said quietly.

"Good. I will have a bed and food for Sephiroth delivered. I trust you know how to administer an IV?"

Lavina's mouth fell open in shock. So he wasn't even to be fed from a bottle.

"I will come every few days to examine his progress and gather him for periodic tests. Good day, Miss."

"Lavina," she breathed, accidently thinking that he had wanted her name. "It's…Lavina," she said awkwardly after the realization hit her.

Hojo waved away the name. She knew he didn't care and was only bothered by the formality.

As he exited, he stopped in the doorway to give her one last set of instructions.

"You are here only to provide the necessities of life for him. If there is any sentimentality, on his part or yours, I will see to it that your relationship is permanently terminated."

He slammed the thick metal door, and it locked behind him.

Lavina tried to open it, even rammed her fists against the unyielding door, but to no avail. It was then that it hit her. The bed he was bringing was for her. This was to be her permanent residence, her home, her prison.

Sephiroth mewed weakly in his cradle, frustrated by his inadequate blanket and how it entangled his clumsy limbs. She could hear his tiny little stomach murmuring as he curled into himself and moaned, perhaps cramping from hunger.

Lavina picked up the baby and pressed him to her shoulder. "So, you and I are going to be together for a while, hm?"

Sephiroth followed his newborn instincts and bobbed his head against her shoulder, searching for milk from his mother. It pained Lavina's heart that she couldn't give him what he needed.

She got what she wanted, didn't she? She was going to be able to help him.

But with Hojo's interference, she feared that her tender care might not be worth the punishment.

Lavina cried, this time for the bleak fate that tiny Sephiroth had been born into.

* * *

A/N: It gets lighter, I promise. Really though, is it even possible that Seph's childhood was a happy one? Look at who his father was!

Sorry for the delay. Tests and writer's block and end-of-school projects have me wanting to jump off a cliff. Meh.

I'm sorry if Lavina seems a little Mary-Sue-ish. Meh. *trembles with hate of mary-sues and disgust that she has created one*

I'll fix it! ....somehow....


	4. A Cold and Solemn Child

The Marked - Chapter Four

The first time Sephiroth's life was put in jeopardy was when he was three weeks old.

Lavina had been preparing Sephiroth for bed just as she did every other night. After his bath, she had dressed him in clean clothes and, when he was shimmering with cleanliness, laid him in his crib on his stomach to flail as he willed as she attended to his IV. The pole was the infant's constant companion; it never left his side, and the needle was only removed from his arm to be placed elsewhere.

Then began the process of preparing his sustenance. Hojo had brought bottles of vitamins, minerals, and other essentials for the development of a baby. These were all in powders. Daily, she would measure out the proper amount and mix it with the saline fluid. There were also jars unlabeled except for instructions such as "50 mg daily" or "10 cc weekly". She didn't know what these were, and it made her sick to wonder what she was putting into Sephiroth, so she quickly learned not to let her mind wander there.

One, however, she knew by the glowing otherworldly green aura: raw mako.

She checked the feeding schedule and instructions to find that she did not have to give Sephiroth mako today. Yesterday, Hojo had doubled his dosage and its frequency. It was good to see that Hojo had the sense to let his little body recover from such a shock. The day without mako signaled a good night's rest for the both of them; it was something to look forward to.

Sephiroth, even though he was only weeks old, knew what the smell of alcohol meant. He no longer even moaned as the needle was reinserted into a new place every day, but he got deathly still, and the betrayed look in his eyes tore Lavina's heart.

"Don't look at me like that," she had said. "It's your dinner."

After she had let him settle for a few minutes, she put him on a scale and recorded his weight, and then measured his growth. Both numbers showed him to be a promisingly healthy baby.

After all the nightly rituals, Lavina could set him down to sleep.

"What will it be tonight?" she asked the baby in the crib as she went to the audio tapes Hojo had provided. "Mako and its Effects on Human Psychology? Principles of Calculus? And oh, here's a new one, Advanced Microbiology."

She turned to get the boy's opinion only to find him sucking on the corner of his bed sheet. She gave him a smile as he looked at her with innocent, uncomprehending eyes. Hojo found the habit disappointing and unsanitary, but Lavina didn't blame him. That sheet was the only thing he had in his crib to play with.

She had settled for Advanced Microbiology, hoping that the new tape might have a reader that didn't speak in a dull monotone. As it turned out, she had no such luck. At any rate, it did have its benefits. Sephiroth was bored to sleep within minutes.

It was only when he was truly, soundly and deeply asleep that Lavina dared to show affection for the little godling. Despite what Hojo had said and the dire consequences he had warned her of, she had grown to love Sephiroth like he was her own son. But only in the dead of night could she ever stroke him warmly, whisper that she loved him, coo a lullaby, or kiss his soft cheek. Some days, when she was sure that Hojo wasn't even in the building, she sacrificed her bedding so Sephiroth could sleep in warmth. That day she hadn't dared to, because Hojo was scheduled to appear soon.

This visit was the first time that Hojo had come to see Sephiroth in person for the first time since he had left him in the care of Lavina. He took all of the infant's measurements, even though Lavina had already done them, and then dismissed her. It was an odd feeling to be let out; she had been entirely contained to fulfill her duties. With her only directions to be back at daybreak, she walked outside of the tiny cell for the first time in weeks.

She made it as far as the stairwell, but could go no further. Feeling sheepishly helpless at her bindings, she used the opportunity to stretch her legs by meandering through the halls.

It was then that she had first been drawn by sudden, overwhelming maternal instincts on Sephiroth's behalf. She found herself in a lab she was not familiar with, unaware of how she had gotten there, looking at Sephiroth's tiny body curled in pain and marred with more wires and tubes than she could count, submersed in a cage of pure mako, unattended by Hojo or his assistants, the monitors hooked to him registering neither breathing nor a pulse.

She never thought there would be a use for her CPR lessons, and she never dreamed that she would perform it on such a tiny infant, but she thanked the planet that she had remembered them well enough to eventually, after what seemed to be hours of crippling terror, coax a shrill cry from the boy's revived lungs.

She beat on his back, trying to get the mako out of his lungs, nose, and mouth. Sephiroth vomited up the mako along with a significant amount of blood, choking on it, struggling to breathe, and screaming in pain when he could gasp in enough breath to do so. It was harrowing to see him in such a state. Lavina could barely see what she did through the tears.

That was the first night she had openly defied all the rules Hojo had set for her. She didn't care that later her actions would earn her a suspension from little Sephiroth for a month and her job was only saved by the fact that she _had_ saved Sephiroth's life. That night, she let him sleep in her bed with her, wrapped in her arms, surrounded by her warmth and security.

* * *

Hojo became a regular visitor, sometimes just to check to make sure that he was developing as he had planned, other times to take him away for mako treatments or another experiment. After the last incident, Lavina was never allowed out of her room, even when Sephiroth was gone.

A security camera had been installed to check her actions at all times. She could no longer so much as cradle the boy in her arms or murmur reassuring words when he was hurt.

But not all visits from outsiders were dreaded.

When Sephiroth was three months old, there was a knock on the door. Lavina was confused, and so stunned that she didn't react until the third knock. She got on her knees and opened the flap that Hojo sent food and supplies through to look at a man's knees. He was dressed in a lab coat, but this wasn't Hojo. If it was, he wouldn't have bothered to knock. Hojo entered like he owned the place. Which, she had to admit, he did.

The doctor knelt down so he could meet her eyes. His face was kind, his eyes smiling. "Can I come in?" he asked. "Am I disturbing anything?"

"Um," she said. "I'm kind of…locked in here."

"Oh I have a key," the man replied. "I just wanted to get your permission to use it."

Lavina hesitated, surprised. "You're not like Hojo," was all she could come up with.

The man grinned. "Why, thank you, miss. What a compliment!" His remarks were genuine and given with a kind smile in his eyes.

The first thing he did after opening the door was to extend a friendly hand. "Professor Gast," he said. "Pleasure to meet you, Lavina."

Lavina took his offered hand and shook, surprised by his warm, strong grip. "Are you here to see Sephiroth?" she asked him.

"Is he asleep?"

"Your knocking woke him."

"Ah," Gast sighed. He walked over to the cradle, peered inside, and gently patted the boy's cheek. "Sorry about that, little fellow."

Sephiroth didn't respond much, just watched him with those fey eyes.

Gast smiled at Lavina as if to reassure her as he washed his hands in the sink. "I've just come for a quick examination. I promise I'll be in and then out."

"It's no bother," Lavina said.

Gast began by looking into his ears and eyes with a little light. His eyes were fixed on the baby, but he still talked to Lavina. "How has he been?"

She hesitated, unsure of what to say. Hojo never asked her opinion, he just found out what he wanted to know for himself. She wanted to speak of the injustices done to Sephiroth, but remembered just in time that the camera was still on her. "He's growing very nicely," she said awkwardly. "And…he's slowly developing a resistance to the mako. It doesn't bother him quite as much…"

Gast chuckled good-naturedly as he coaxed Sephiroth's mouth open, looking into his throat with the light. Sephiroth let out a small squall of protest. "An exemplary answer…if Hojo had been the one asking the question. No, I mean how _is_ he? What's his personality?"

Lavina thought for a minute. "He's a mild child," she began. "Mostly very quiet and observant. His eyes wander all around. He likes to watch the clock tick and the wheels on the tape player turn. He seems…" she stopped here to search for the right word, "_content _enough…but in all his short life I've never seen him smile."

At this, Gast frowned, but only in his eyes. His hands hesitated before they put a stethoscope on his bare chest. "A cold and solemn child," he murmured. "…An unusual and unfortunate phenomenon. Perhaps we have robbed him of the joyful innocence of childhood already."

"It is just as you said," Gast concluded as he rose to his feet. "He's a healthy baby." Gast tapped the boy's head, tossing his wispy silky hair, and then redressed him in his tiny white gown. "I have only one question."

"I'll do my best to answer, but I'm not told much, Professor."

"Why in Gaia is the boy on an IV?"

"…It's…his food, sir."

Gast looked absolutely flabbergasted. "Is he sick?"

"No sir."

Realization flooded his eyes, and he balked as it did. "So Hojo really did do it. I never thought when he proposed it that he would actually…" He shook his head. "So he hasn't had a meal through his mouth since he was born?"

"No sir."

"And he's three months old?"

"…That's right."

Gast went over to the counter and pulled a sheet of paper from the cabinet, scribbling furiously. "Well, Lavina, the fact of the matter is that Hojo is Sephiroth's father. I can't do much about the rights that that affords to Hojo. However," he turned back to her and slipped the folded paper in her hand, "I am the father of the Jenova Project. I do have some say in all of this. I think it's time I pushed my authority to get a few things made better for the boy."

An idea had been brewing in her mind for too long for it not to spill when the subject was brought up. "Can he be punished?" Lavina asked. "Hojo…we could accuse him of child abuse. Could we take Sephiroth out of his custody? Isn't there a protection service for children?"

Gast was truly sympathetic. "There is, but in the records, Sephiroth is not listed as a child."

"What?!"

"Hojo has classified him as a specimen. As horrific as this may sound, Sephiroth's birth certificate is a specimen profile. Hojo wrote 'unknown' under species. Sephiroth is grouped with the monsters and creatures in the lab cages downstairs. He has no rights because, according to Shinra, he is not human."

This was so stunning that Lavina had to sit on the bed to compose herself. So Hojo had stripped Sephiroth's very humanity from him. What was the madman planning to make the boy? It made her shudder to think.

_Unknown species…inhuman…_

"We'll do what we can for the boy," Gast said. With those last words, he patted her hand and then respectfully left.

Later, she read the note.

_Lavina,_

_Use this information with care, but there's a blind spot in the camera's view in the northeast corner. Don't use it frequently, as Hojo will suspect, but if Sephiroth needs something, give it to him there where you can be hidden. Hojo told you that he was listening to you as well? It's a lie. The camera doesn't have sound detectors. You can speak freely.  
I'll be back soon, and I hope to bring help with me._

_Keep your hopes up. Hojo doesn't have complete dominion over the boy yet._

_-Professor Gast_

_  
_Lavina went to bed that night thinking about how good it felt to have an ally.

* * *

A/N: I know NOTHING about Gast. Information would be fantastically appreciated.

So those of you who have been sticking with me for a while know that I have never played FFVII. Yes, it is true, I wrote upwards of 600 pages on a game I've never played. NOT ANYMORE! Thanks to the efforts of a friend, I am borrowing the game and playing it. I hope that by playing the game I can make my story more accurate.

So...there's what I'm going to be doing this summer.

Next Chapter: Battle for the Bottle


	5. New Facility

The Marked - Chapter Five

Gast did not reappear for months, and Sephiroth was granted no new leniencies by Hojo. For a while, Lavina was convinced that nothing would change, that the boy's fate was sealed. This hopelessness wasn't painful; it simply was the way things were. Life for both Lavina and Sephiroth became bland, flavorless, colorless, and without emotion or a change from the monotony.

At promptly 6 a.m. were the initial measurements of height and weight which were shortly followed by his first feeding of the day. After he was "fed", Lavina could remove him from the wires to set him on a little plastic mat on the floor. After sticking wireless probes on various locations on his body, she would then guide the infant in a sort of exercise and stretching program that Hojo insisted would further stimulate his growth and set a pattern of physical exercise that would continue for the rest of his life. After the stretches, Lavina moved Sephiroth back to the cradle and reattached him to the IV for his lunch while the probes finished sending the results of the workout program to Hojo via radio signals. At one in the afternoon, Sephiroth was allowed an hour long nap while Lavina read to him from a textbook. At promptly two, Hojo would come to examine Sephiroth and give Lavina further instructions according to the boy's physical growth and intellectual development. From four to five, Lavina was to speak directly to Sephiroth in "intelligent and stimulating conversation" in the hope that Sephiroth would learn to understand the vocabulary and, eventually, when he did speak, speak on a higher level than "the common infant population". At five was his dinner and mako treatment, at seven the final measurements of the day, at eight was his bath, and finally, at nine-thirty, he was allowed to sleep to the voices of the lecture tapes. This pattern was interrupted only on Mondays and Fridays, when Sephiroth was taken away for experimentation.

The only surprise in their lives was when Hojo came up with an experiment that "just could not wait" and Sephiroth was taken away for another day. They lived by the clock and calendar, their routine as regular as the tick of the second hand. Every inch the boy grew was another number for a calculation, every little movement was merely evidence to support a thesis, every sound another point to define the line of Hojo's climbing success, every passing day and every achievement it brought was only another statistic.

Only in the darkness of the night, when the bleakness of the room hid her from the security camera, could she dare to dream that anything could be any different. A sad little glimmer in Sephiroth's eyes made her wonder if something in his young heart yearned for freedom or even knew that this was not the way things should be.

Gast, and his promise, seemed merely a dream that faded a little more with each day.

* * *

She had refrained from using the blind spot that Gast had pointed out for fear that the entire visit had been imagined. It had been unbearably tempting at times. When Sephiroth was weak, sick, and in agony from the mako treatments it was easy to eye the corner and imagine cradling and loving him like any normal baby. Somehow, she managed to stifle these longings.

But the feelings of defiance for her and Sephiroth's situation and the courage to act upon them came with Gast's second visit.

She had been in the adjoining bathroom drying her hair when she heard the door open. When she emerged, she wasn't met with Hojo's cold sneer, but Gast's kind grin.

"Good morning, Lavina. You look well. Forgive me for my intrusion, but I bring news that I think will be very welcome."

Gast warmly greeted Sephiroth as well. Sephiroth made no noticeable reaction; the encounter wasn't even worthy enough to pause his previous activity, which had been gnawing with toothless gums on his fist. Gast smiled and gently shook the one hand that wasn't sopping wet.

Lavina pulled the last of the workout probes from Sephiroth's skin and stored them in a case for tomorrow's use. Sighing, she wheeled the IV from where she kept it in the corner over to the side of Sephiroth's glass cradle, hung a bag of greenish tinted fluid from the hook at the top, and unwound the thin plastic tubing. "Lunch," she said sheepishly, pulling a new needle and fresh gauze from the sanitation unit.

Gast frowned, and Lavina did admit that it was sad that he had to be fed like this, but the needle pricks didn't even make Sephiroth blink anymore. He continued chewing on his hand like nothing happened.

"It keeps him alive," Lavina said sadly, "and healthy. Until we can win him a bottle, this will have to do."

Gast nodded. "Well, I can't say I've won that big of a victory, but my prodding has given the both of you a little step in the right direction."

Lavina urged him on, eager for the good news.

"Seph's getting to be a big fellow," Gast said, patting Sephiroth's stomach approvingly. "I managed to convince Hojo that he's outgrown this tiny cage. And this closet that you're in now is not big enough to fit a crib in, so we're relocating the two of you to a bigger, more permanent area."

Lavina was happy, but didn't dare to hope for too much. More space would be fantastic, but it would also come with a price. More room also meant more equipment. A crib sounded wonderful, but she doubted that it would be a wooden one with a mattress, proper bedding, musical mobiles and toys. More likely, it would be a metal cage with all sorts of gadgets and gizmos to aid in the scientists' testing on the baby.

But even such a small upgrade was something significant to smile about. "You hear that, Sephiroth?" Lavina said, ruffling his downy hair.

"It is an…_impressive_complex," Gast said. "There's his living quarters, which are surprisingly large, and then your room, which is across from his. You get a bed, closet, desk, and adequate bathroom. Not much, and it is shamefully small. I think the assumption was that you'll be spending more time in his room than yours. There's more, but I'll let you see for yourself."

"When do we move?"

"As soon as you're ready."

* * *

Moving in had taken five minutes because all that Lavina and Sephiroth had to transport was their bodies. Newer, more efficient equipment was provided; everything had been upgraded. The scientist's assistant in Lavina was impressed; the caretaker of Sephiroth wasn't.

The two of them were given a break from their regular schedule on the grounds that it would do Sephiroth good to be acquainted with his surroundings. Balancing the baby on her hip (as Hojo had decreed that cradling him in her arms or holding him against her shoulder was too sentimental) she wandered the rooms of their own private wing. True to Gast's claims, Sephiroth's room was the largest, as it had to accommodate a crib, a changing table that also served as the platform on which he was tested, a great many shelves and cabinets, and a mini-laboratory with all the machines, tools, and chemicals needed for the day-to-day procedure. Next to his room was a large closet that served as a library, filled to bursting with textbooks, videos, and audio recordings that the boy was to be educated with. Besides the basic rooms like a bathroom and a supply closet, there were large, empty areas that Hojo planned allot for things such as an exercise room and Sephiroth's own private study as he grew. There was tubing in one room that looked suspiciously like the beginnings of Sephiroth's own personal mako chamber.

But the area had none of the modifications that Lavina had dared to dream of. Every window was still pathetically small and barred, often having such a depressing view of polluted, poverty-ridden Midgar that it would have been preferable to stare at whitewashed brick. While she could move freely from room to room within her wing, there was only one door that led out, and that was locked with a voice-identification system. True to form, everything was white, gray, or silver. Cameras, and probably voice bugs, were everywhere.

In the end, nothing important had really changed.

Or so she had thought at first.

The discovery came as an accident. She was just setting Sephiroth down for his nap when she heard a slight scuffing behind her.

In this new room, Gast had found a way to provide her with more than enough to defy Hojo.

* * *

A/N: o.O

This chapter took FOREVER. I am having the worst block I have ever experienced in my life for both this story and "Motherland". I don't know why. I want to rip my hair out, that's how bad it is.

This chapter was going to be longer, but since my block set in I decided to break it into two sections. The next chapter will be called "Battle of the Bottle".

Oddly enough, ideas for one of my newer fics are coming really easily. (how does that work? I don't have a clue.) Anyway, I AM writing, just not here (successfully, anyway). If you're in for some maniacally depressing stuff, you can check out "Flodden Field". Don't say I didn't warn you. It's NOT a happy read. It is about Nibelheim (hence the impossibility of happiness) and also about how Sephiroth betrayed Aralyn (T.T) . I hinted at it in Broken Wings. If you don't like it, PLEASE don't feel obligated to read it.

So...until my creative juices are freed from their oppressors...enjoy!


	6. For the Sake of the Child

The Marked - Chapter Six

_Lucrecia was still as her hospital bed was wheeled through the halls, deeply sleeping or perhaps even unconscious. She did not stir at the sounds or sensations around her; the dry, idle chatter of the scientists, the doorbell like chime of the approaching elevator, the rise and drop in pressure as the elevator jolted to life and then to a stop, the slammed metal doors that sealed her within her nightmare._

_She lay immobile throughout her transport, her limp hospital gown draped over her thin, sickly body and her impossibly bulging stomach, swollen with pregnancy. The fabric clung to her in places, wet with the sweat of fever and nightmares. Her hair was disheveled, without luster or life, and laid defeated on the thin white pillow, splayed around her like a wilted wreath of earthen hue. Her face was pale and drawn, and a chalky, bone white tinged with the gray of ash. The hue of death seemed to blanket all her skin. She might have been mistaken for a cadaver._

_Perhaps she lived, but she did not show it._

_Once she had been beautiful. Now she was all but dead._

_Her stomach was impossibly large, surely an insurmountable burden for a body as emaciated as hers. As far as the nurses could tell, the baby was healthy. Perhaps it took its strength from the very marrow of its mother's bones. It was surely an innocent leech that could not know that its very existence was slowly and painfully killing the woman._

_Her eyes fluttered open weakly as she felt the nurses' hands begin to pull away the thin white sheet that was draped over her thighs. Once they had been a color as rich as chocolate, a color so very living because of the spark within them, but now their beauty was gone, extinguished with the light that had made them glow so radiantly._

_"Where…?" she rasped in an airy, tremulous voice without the lilting, musical tone that had once made her cadent speech rival the songbird's._

_"Professor Hojo needs to examine the specimen, Dr. Crescent."_

_She might have plastered on a happy (or at the very least, contented or eventually passive) face for her husband, as she had in her early days of their marriage and her ensuing pregnancy. She might have cried, wailed, and struggled in anger or sorrow, as she had when the experiments had gone too far and led to her decay and her baby's mutation. She might have wept silently as she did when Hojo's experimentation continued. _

_But she did none of these, for she had passed far beyond hopelessness. _

_She closed her eyes, surrendered, and fell limp into the nurse's arms as they slid her from her bed to the examination table. The nurses then left her alone in the room, with only scalpels and machines to keep her company._

_And, of course, her child._

_She slid a wan hand over her stomach and let it languidly rest there, opening her eyes at last to gaze at her abdomen._

_Her child; her love and her fear, her killer and savior, her creation and destruction, her joy and her anguish._

_She had been deeply unconscious last time Hojo had given her an ultrasound to ascertain the gender of the child, but she knew in her heart that the soul in her womb was a male. Sometimes she dreamed of her son. She hoped that he would have emerald eyes, (even though her brown eyes and Hojo's gray made this genetically impossible,) for such a rich, deep green was the color Mother Nature herself had chosen to represent life and vitality. If she must be bone white and ash gray, she wanted her son to be full of color and spirit._

_Her son stirred within her, restless for some reason, and kicked so hard that she feared his heel might puncture the thin, sallow skin of her abdomen. Lucrecia gasped, seeing colored spots flash before her eyes, clutching the edges of the table in fright._

_She very much feared her son's strength, and she lived in terror that in his infantile naivety, he would become so strong that he would take her life and, more horrifyingly, end his own as a result._

"_Be gentle with your mother, my son," she pleaded. "You might be strong, but you can't survive outside of me just yet. Wait just a while longer." _

_She used to fear the birth in the early days of her pregnancy, and she still did, but for far different reasons. While she once feared the pain of labor, she now only feared that she would not have the physical capacity to bring her son forth. These nine months of growth would be in vain if her frailty and sickness overcame her, and her son would die within her before he could draw his first breath because her body would not be strong enough to bring him into the world, or that he would grow beyond her body's ability to safely bear. It was not her life she sought to protect now; it was her son's. She did not fear, and even began to calmly expect, that the birth would kill her. She prayed only to live long enough to pass her life on to her baby, that her greatest, final sacrifice would be rewarded with the life of her son. _

_If the price she was required to pay for her son's life was a death in childbirth, she would pay it, without a word of complaint, if only he could allowed to live._

_But with every day, her son grew stronger and she grew weaker, and she began to doubt that she would be able to support him until he was due in three long months._

_That was why she no longer struggled as Hojo continued the experimentation. He would not allow the vessel that nursed his greatest creation to die. On her own, she would have withered long ago, and doomed her child's chance at life as she lost her own. _

_But she could still fear his visits, weep for the pain that caused her son to writhe within the supposed safety of her womb, and envision a dark fate that would be sealed upon her innocent little child from such a twisted, tainted creation._

* * *

_Her throat tightened in panic as she heard her son's father approaching, the snap as he briskly pulled latex gloves over his cruel, bony hands. This time, he wasn't alone, and it worried her. Usually he was quite protective of his specimen, and never let "unworthy" hands touch him._

_If Hojo had requested help, it was usually because a procedure had been scheduled, too intricate for his two hands alone._

_Lucrecia let out a strangled sob which she hardly managed to choke back. She couldn't breathe. What were they going to do to her…to her son?!_

_"Relax, Dr. Crescent," Hojo's high voice said blandly, uncaringly. "We haven't started anything just yet."_

_So it was true. Her chest was so tight that it hurt, and her heart throbbed out of control. She began to tremble and sweat, though she felt so cold. She struggled against the smothering sensation, the heavy weight crushing her lungs, and the obstruction of her nose and mouth so she couldn't draw in oxygen._

_"Calm down," he said, irritably instead of soothingly, annoyed with her reaction. "You'll send yourself into labor. You wouldn't want that for your precious little baby, would you, Dr. Crescent? Do you know what the survival rate is for three-month premature infants?"_

_Lucrecia knew that he was mocking her maternal feelings for her child—he had often insulted her for her "unprofessional attachment to the specimen", but she did nothing to rebuke him, for her own defense or her son's. She knew that statistic, and forced herself to breathe. She would endure whatever they were going to do to her for the sake of her child._

_"Now, that's better." _

_He walked over to her, leering down at her with cruel, calculating eyes from where he towered over where she lay sprawled out and helpless. He frowned deeply (Lucrecia was convinced that the man didn't ever smile) and murmured something under his breath. He was dressed as he always was, in a smart white laboratory coat over a collared shirt and midnight colored tie. His long hair, a slick, greasy obsidian, was pulled back into a thin ponytail that traced his spine so as not to obstruct his delicate workings. Everything, from his visage to his bony construction, was cold and cruel. In this man beat no human heart._

_"Set up the ultrasound, fools, and get me my equipment!" he snapped at his assistants. As they scampered away, fearing his wrath as much as Lucrecia did, he pulled a small voice recording device from his lab coat pocket, tinkering with a few knobs and buttons._

_"It is the twenty-first of October," he said into the recorder, holding it up to his mouth. "And it is," he peered down at his watch but did not pause his narration, "half past noon."_

_He pulled a measuring tape and threw it over Lucrecia's swollen stomach, swiftly taking her measurements. "The specimen has grown. The host's abdomen has grown five inches in circumference from the last measurements. The subject's estimated mass is around eight pounds, a large spike in growth that, if continued, might harm the host enough to require emergency procedures."  
He said it coldly, without feeling. Both the news and the way it was said froze Lucrecia's heart._

_"…the host is weakening, but not unreasonably so for experimentation. We will continue with further testing."_

_He pocketed the recorder, though Lucrecia knew that it would be pulled out several times as he made other observations of note or got ideas for future tests. Done with the initial recording, he swept the top of Lucrecia's gown up, revealing her swollen, pale stomach. _

_Lucrecia turned her head to the side as his cold hands began to probe her abdomen, pinching and pressing to search for abnormalities, which he was usually perversely delighted to find, especially if they needed "extensive measures" to correct. The brief examination was quick, and concluded with a passive "Hmmm," by the scientist. Apparently he had found nothing worth mentioning in the small recorder in his pocket._

_"Where are those incompetent fools?" he murmured. "We don't have all day." It was such a characteristic thing of her husband that Lucrecia almost laughed, if only bitterly. He was always so impatient, so meticulous about his work that few could work alongside him, without passion or compassion, a creature of numbers, theories, and proven facts where his heart should have been. Even those who supposedly shared his cold outlook on science could seldom stomach witnessing his inhumane experiments._

_"Professor?" the timid voice of a nurse said. Soft patters echoed through the tiled room as her slippers padded toward Hojo. "The chemicals you asked for…"_

_"What about them?" he snapped irritably._

_She spoke in a terrified voice, haltingly and hesitantly, knowing that she was treading on lethal ground to speak to Hojo. "It's just…with her so weak…is this wise? There's no feasible way she can survive both a pregnancy and…there's no telling what it will do to the baby…!"_

_They were both out of Lucrecia's vision, but she heard the cruel slap. "Are you a scientist, miss?" he sneered._

_"N-no sir."_

_"Then I have no need for such an unprofessionally ignorant and utterly useless opinion. Get out, and bring me exactly what I asked for."_

_"…It's here, sir."_

_"Then do your job. Hook her up to an IV and get her started."_

_Lucrecia looked away. She didn't want to see the nurse, how she swabbed the inside of her elbow or inserted the needle that would feed another poison into her veins and worse, into her baby. The nurse did hold her hand after she was done, squeezing gently, rubbing her hand with her thumb as their hands were clasped. The gentle condolence only brought tears to her eyes._

_"What are you putting in me?" Lucrecia moaned. Surely if she was sympathetic she would tell her that much. "Mako? Jenova Cells?"_

_"No, miss. Those are to be administered later in the procedure."_

_"Then what is it?" she sobbed. "Will it hurt my baby?"_

_But the nurse was silent. _

_She took that as a yes._

* * *

_She felt the change that night. She had been awake, but slowly drifting off to what would doubtlessly be a troubled sleep. Normally her baby was active at this time, as the cadence of her motions often lulled him to sleep during the day. _

_Not tonight. Her son didn't stir._

_The absence of motion was alarming, and she sat upright in bed. She tried to clear her head enough to think. She had seen her son on the ultrasound that day; a curled little thing that had not yet fully taken on the form of a normal human. _

_The fluid she had been given in the IV caused paralysis and mild sedation, she learned soon enough, and one so potent that it very well might have shut her down forever. The nurse was right to be concerned. She was quite sure that the drug was illegal. _

_Hojo did always have ways of bending the laws to suit his purposes. She wasn't surprised._

_They needed her paralyzed, because the procedure was delicate, and any struggling on her part might have irreparably hurt her or the baby. Somewhere along the line, Hojo had decided that it wasn't enough to inject her with mako and Jenova cells and letting the infant absorb them. She had known what they were going to do from the moment she saw the longest, thinnest needle she had ever seen, long enough to go through her abdomen and into her womb. _

_Hojo had decided to toy with injecting them directly into her son's developing body. Thus the ultrasound, so they could locate where he was, and spear him in the right place._

_The baby had reacted, and that was a relief. At least, while he had been rudely awakened, he was alive. The Jenova cells and mako hadn't killed him directly, as Lucrecia half expected it to. While he was probably feeling pain for the first time, and it hurt for Lucrecia to watch her son struggle on the screen of the ultrasound, alarmed by this new sensation of pain and confused as to what was happening or why, infants often got injections. Worse, _far_ worse, could have happened._

_But now she could feel no movement from her infant._

_She wouldn't let herself panic, but calmly collected herself and rose to her feet, leaning on the bedpost for support. She would go to Hojo, just as a precaution. Nothing was wrong, but just to be sure…_

_Her calm shattered as she saw blood on the bed sheets._

_Miscarriage was all she could think of as she collapsed to the ground, screaming in hysteria._

_"No…no! Hojo…_you've murdered him! _**You've murdered my son!**_"

* * *

_"False alarm," Hojo said. "I told you that I wouldn't let my greatest creation die."_

_Lucrecia could not hear him, she was still unconscious. After the nurses had dragged her to Hojo, screaming her heartbreak and rage at her husband, she had fainted in her husband's arms as he had thrown her onto the examination table._

_"Murderer," she had hissed before she blacked out, using the last of her strength that was not consumed in anguish to spit in his face._

_"So what happened?" a nurse asked as she moved Lucrecia back to a hospital bed, covering her with thin blankets. _

_"Just a little overreaction on the specimen's part. The surgery should have corrected that, but I want him monitored, just in case we didn't manage to stimulate him enough. If we didn't, bring the host in immediately and we'll shock him with a higher voltage."_

_"Yes sir," she said. Her hand had been resting idly on Lucrecia's stomach, and she felt a weak little kick, without enthusiasm, almost a broken little action._

_"The host is not to leave her bed. See that she has all the necessities here in her room."_

_"Yes, sir. And the treatment…?"_

_"A wonderful success!" Hojo cried in jubilation, insanity in his voice. "My, if I'd known it would have such effects I would have done it from the beginning! We continue. Double…no…_triple_ the concentration of mako and Jenova cells…up the dosage too, and frequency. Twice a day, I should think. We'll up it to three if the positive results continue."_

_The nurse could not help but think that he was mad._

_But what could she do?_

_She only did as he instructed because she felt that, even if the treatment was to cease, both the mother and the son were already doomed._

A/N: Yeesh....Well, at least I'm sort of out of my writer's block.

* * *


	7. The Battle of the Bottle Begins

The Marked: Chapter Seven 

Lavina opened the drawer in which she had heard the movement to find only the usual shipment of Sephiroth's medications, slid in from a tube from the adjoining lab that fed into the back of her cabinet. There were five or six bottles of powders, three plastic IV bags with raw mako (Sephiroth no longer received his treatment with his food – Hojo had decided that the mixing with the saline solution diluted the effects too much), and some containers with some odd liquids that she didn't care to identify. She imagined that if she did learn about every substance that she was given, she would have qualified for a doctorate in pharmaceutical medicine long ago.

Sighing, she picked up the deliveries and set them on the counter. Sephiroth was listening to a lecture, (_Glycolysis and Protein Synthesis in Genetically Enhanced Hosts – An Intermediate Course to Accompany Biology 502 Lab 173)_ and would probably drift off to sleep as soon as he became bored of gnawing on his fist. She took his obsession with biting things and his occasional tiny whimpers as signs that perhaps he was teething, and she meant to speak with Hojo about it.

"The usual for dinner," Lavina said to the baby, though he was too absorbed in gumming his clenched fist to care. She took a bag of plain saline solution and popped the childproof top off the container of powdered vitamins. "The nutritional equivalent of a well balanced meal."

It wasn't until she had emptied the contents into the IV bag that she noticed something odd about the label. It wasn't written in Hojo's quick, messy scrawl, as it usually was, and the chemical facts and nutritional values were given, which had _never_ been the case.

Intrigued, she peeled off the label and examined it further.

"_Lavina,_"a note written on the back read. "_Talk to Hojo about Dr. Lancaster, express interest in the man's work. Let's see if we can finally win a little something for Seph. –Gast_"

Confused, but willing to give it a try, she used the laptop she had been given to research this Dr. Lancaster. Conveniently, she was looking up his profile when Hojo came in for the daily checkup with his specimen.

Lavina continued to read as Hojo worked with Sephiroth, taking his measurements and such. She was so absorbed that it came as a shock when the Professor directly addressed her.

"_What_ are you doing, Miss Lavine?" the man sneered.

Lavina stood to address the scientist, knowing better than to correct him about her name. "While Sephiroth slept I was doing a little reading."

Hojo's beady black eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Reading _what_?" he demanded.

She stepped away from the laptop and gestured for him to come and see for himself.

"Ah, Dr. Lancaster," Hojo said. "A fine man, a true devotee of the noble sciences! The two of us have worked together on many a thesis. I do hope he will tape some of his lectures, it is fine material for my specimen."

This was the most praise she had ever heard the Professor speak about _anyone _(come to think of it, she couldn't remember the last time he had said a good word about anyone other than himself – chances were that he never had), and she assumed that the odd inflection in his nasally voice was _approval_. Slightly unnerved by how well this was going, Lavina nonetheless prodded him onward, happy to have found a sweet spot with the sour man. "He is a fellow biologist, then?"

"Psychologist, actually," Hojo corrected as one bony finger pushed his glasses up his long, thin nose. "But his knowledge has aided me greatly. In fact, I do hope he will agree to create a psychological profile of the specimen when he is a bit older, and perhaps formulate a learning plan to enhance his intelligence."

This told Lavina volumes. There were precious few who were ever allowed to lay their hands on Hojo's prize experiment. To say that Dr. Lancaster was one of them told her that this was a rare find indeed.

One that (dare she hope?) she might be able to use.

"A friend of mine recommended his work to me," Lavina said. "It's something to do while Sephiroth is sleeping. I'm quite intrigued, sir."

"As long as you're not neglecting your duties," Hojo said as he walked out the door, "it would do a fool like you good to get yourself a worthy education from a man like Lancaster. Read some of his works to the specimen too, while you're at it."

Lavina stood stunned for a long time after the door was slammed behind the professor.  
Had he actually just granted her _permission_ to do something?

* * *

"The specimen", as Hojo so fondly referred to his son as, quite enjoyed the break from the taped lectures as Lavina read to him excerpts from Dr. Lancaster's work. Sephiroth responded more to her voice than he ever had to the professors' recordings, sometimes even staying awake throughout the lesson, staring at her with wide, spellbinding eyes. Hojo was pleased by the development, attributing the spike in attention span to the marvel of his colleague's research, while Lavina knew that it was her voice that kept the infant stimulated for so long. She kept this knowledge to herself, as if Hojo knew he would probably consider it a form of "attachment" that had been expressly and repeatedly forbidden.

She knew it was an attachment. She felt it. She began to look forward to reading hour as the only time she could bond with the tiny seraph. It was the light in both of their bleak, regular days.

Over a surprisingly little amount of time, Sephiroth began to respond to Lavina's voice while Hojo's produced only stony indifference from the child. He was calm and content in her arms, but he still struggled for Hojo. Lavina knew that he _knew_ her, perhaps even _trusted _her. It was a wondrous thing for Lavina to witness that hidden but very, very real bond between the two of them. Sometimes, she could convince herself that she was something of a mother to the little infant.

She thanked the planet for Dr. Lancaster every day, for the strengthening of the bond between infant and caretaker, even before the second note from Gast came with the usual shipments of medications.

* * *

_"Ask his opinion on the attached study. –Gast"_

Lavina thumbed through the extensive research paper, scanning graphs and charts of statistical analyses and pages upon pages of conclusions and discussion.

It was crazy, she thought. So crazy, that it just might work.

* * *

"Reading more of Dr. Lancaster's literature, Miss Ravine?"

Lavina dutifully raised her head from the thick packet and nodded, smiling like a genuinely interested student. Hojo nodded his approval, murmuring, "Good, good," as he examined an abnormally restless Sephiroth. He hadn't believed her when she had suggested that Sephiroth was teething and refused to treat him as such, and as a result, the child was usually squirming with unrest even when Hojo wasn't around.

"What is the topic of this paper?" the scientist asked as Sephiroth let out a loud yelp of discomfort.

She had planned her words very carefully the night before. "The intellectual development of children, sir."

"Ah," Hojo said, wresting with a squirming, yowling Sephiroth. "I meant to see what he had to say on the subject. I will require that article, Miss Selina. It might do _the specimen_," Hojo grunted as he struggled to hold the boy's slippery little hand down and steady enough to reach the vein he sought with a needle, "some good."

Lavina didn't let herself feel victory yet, but did allow an admission that so far, things were working out quite nicely.

"The section that most caught my attention was how mental development can be stimulated in infants of Sephiroth's age…"

She stopped abruptly, knowing what she did before Hojo turned to leer at her with narrowed eyes. His thin lips tightened into a nearly invisible line. "Are _you_ seeking to advise me, Miss Ratina?" he sneered disdainfully. "About _my_ specimen?" She could hear the threat of expulsion clear as day.

_Break it to him slower!_ she scolded herself. She had never been one for tact, and was lamenting her lack thereof more than ever. "Of course not, sir. Forgive me, I only thought you might be intrigued by Dr. Lancaster's findings." She put on her best "airhead face", trying to look as innocent and stupid as possible. She buried her nose in the article with an expression that she hoped looked like a humbled and ashamed convict.

Hojo turned back to Sephiroth with a "harrumph," and continued his struggle with the wriggling boy.

Lavina read in silence as Hojo worked with Sephiroth. For a while, all was quiet except for the occasional protest from Sephiroth as he was prodded and measured.

"Does Dr. Lancaster discuss the effectiveness of subliminal readings?" Hojo asked stiffly. "I have been meaning to discuss with him the effects of the lectures on increasing the specimen's intellectual capacities."

Lavina nearly sighed. She hadn't botched the job yet, maybe it wasn't over. "Indeed, he does." _Break it slowly,_ she reminded herself. _Easy, girl. _"He says the evidence moderately supports that subliminal messages do impact the conscious mind, and that exposing an infant to advanced literature and lectures may indeed facilitate greater education later in life."

"Good, good," the doctor's head and ponytail bobbed in approval.

"He also discusses other methods, Professor," she continued cautiously. "Perhaps you would like to examine them at your leisure?" She held out the hefty packet of papers to him.

Hojo raised his head, tempted by the bait, but eventually declined. "The specimen is due for extensive testing, and analyzing the results will take me the better part of a month. I won't have the time for Lancaster's thesis this month, regrettably. Sum it up for me. You have piqued my curiosities, Dratina."

_So you're going to make me do the hard work…_ Lavina thought with dread. _Oh, Gaia help me…_

"Lancaster's work is with neural circuits in the brain," she began. "If they are formed in an infant brain, they will benefit the child's mental development for the rest of his life."

Hojo waved a hand idly, suggesting that he already knew that and wanted her to cut to the chase.

"Subliminal teaching works because of the stimulation the sound creates in the brain, not the actual lectures themselves. In fact, the more complex and intricate the noise, the greater tendency there is to develop those strong neural circuits."

"So make some noise and the specimen will get smarter?" Hojo asked skeptically.

"In essence, yes."

"Does Dr. Lancaster specify sounds that are most productive?"

Lavina gulped. There was no more softening it up, it was time to drop the bomb. "H-He does…sir…"

"Spit it out you miserable girl."

"M-Music, s-sir."

Hojo froze and Lavina's heart stopped.

"Classical music, to be exact." She spoke rapidly in desperation, trying to keep from stuttering. "The unique sounds of each of the different instruments blended together and the many layers of the music stimulate a lot of activity in the brain. It's the most effective way. And it's beneficial to more than the child's mind! Some children have an affinity to move to the music, which is exercise to build…muscles and…good…body posture." She couldn't remember the facts anymore and didn't want to know how true the stuff that was spewing out of her mouth was. "And it creates a lifelong appreciation for the fine arts, and varying interests and hobbies are important in a well-rounded child…"

Hojo's eyes were black slits the burned as he ruthlessly stared her down. She could almost feel herself wither beneath that oppressive glare.

"Are you saying," he began slowly, "that music will make _my specimen_ into a dancing, flute-loving ninny?"

It occurred to her then that she probably should have stopped after the mental benefits.

"Not dancing, sir, more like--"

"And why should I _care_ that he develops an interest in _the arts_ of all the blasted things in Gaia?"

"You shouldn't, sir, but--"

"I don't want a sniveling _maestro_, I want a _god_!"

"I know sir, but listen to sense—"

"_Sense?_" Hojo roared. The vicious outburst sent baby Sephiroth into tears. "I'll tell you what makes _sense_--!"

In her defense, she held up the thick article by Dr. Lancaster and hid her face behind its pages. To her absolute astonishment, Hojo stopped his storming charge toward her, halted by the thesis paper as effectively if there had been a brick wall between the two of them. Brusquely, he snatched the papers from her grip and adjusted his glasses, scanning the papers briefly.

As he read, Lavina took a moment to compose herself. She drew herself upright, brushed her skirts flat, and tried to calm her racing heart. She knew she had failed miserably…

…But Dr. Lancaster still had a chance to convince him.

* * *

A/N: I simply can't imagine Hojo liking music.

And...I live?


	8. The Sweet Taste of Victory

The Marked: Chapter Eight

The following morning, the usual shipment of medications was accompanied by a startling little surprise.

The note simply read: _Good work, Lavina! Celebrate—the both of you! –Gast_

With the medicines was a solitary peach.

Lavina picked the thing up as if it was radioactive. _Fresh fruit_? Because of the poor quality of the mako-poisoned Midgar soil, such a thing was rare in the city itself, let alone in this laboratory! She ran her fingers over the fuzzy skin, gently pressing to find it ripe and supple with the perfect firmness. Her mouth began to water as she tried to remember the last time she had partaken of one of these delicacies.

She reread the note, confused as to what she had done to deserve such a treasure. If he had been referring to the presenting of Dr. Lancaster's work to Hojo, she was quite sure she had botched that, even though she had not heard from him yet.

…_the both of you?_ she read aloud in confusion. Her head swiveled around the room. Surely he couldn't mean…?

Sephiroth was exploring a newly discovered power of his: the strength to sit. By clinging to the edges of his crib for support, he could usually wriggle himself into a sitting position with a few grunts and a lot of effort from his tiny limbs. Currently, he was rolling over, groaning in frustration from either teething (which even Hojo had confirmed was occurring) or his last fall on his back. Lavina looked at the infant, and then at the peach.

The baby hadn't eaten a single thing in his life—not even mother's milk. Could he physically _handle_ a peach? She supposed the babies of his age frequently ate baby food, and mashed peaches could plausibly be on the menu on occasion, but normal babies knew how to suck, to chew, to swallow, because it's what they did since birth. Sephiroth did not have that experience, and who knew what the fruit might to do his unused digestive system?

To say nothing of what Hojo would do when (_if_, she corrected herself) he found out.

"Sephiroth?" she asked the child. His head turned; he now responded to his name. During Lavina's musings he had managed to sit up on his own, and was staring at her as he sucked on his fist.

"Do you…?" She didn't know what she was asking, and she didn't know why she was asking him. She looked helplessly between the fruit and the baby, who stared intently at her with those fey mako eyes as his fist bobbed in and out of his mouth.

"You're supposed to be a god someday, right? Can you handle this?"

Sephiroth lost his balance and plopped onto his back with a small, frustrated squall. He got over the disappointment of failure quickly, and stopped playing with his fist in favor of grabbing his feet and rocking side to side. He made soft cooing sounds that Hojo said were a clear precursor to intelligible speech.

_He's almost six months old, _she reminded herself. _And Gast wouldn't let me if he didn't think it was safe…_

She mulled over the problem the entire day as the fruit sat concealed in the drawer. Life continued on as usual, unchanged by the monumental arrival of the peach, until late that evening.

She had just pulled a very slippery but squeaky-clean Sephiroth from a bath and wrapped his shivering little body in a towel when Hojo arrived. She was taken aback; when he had not come at the usual time she had assumed he was not coming at all. The scientist waved at her to finish her work, and so she patted the infant dry, administered the "lotion" Hojo had prescribed (she had a sick feeling that it was more than the "fresh spring" scent that made the stuff so green), and dressed him in a pristine hospital gown before she presented him to Hojo.

To her surprise, Hojo did not take Sephiroth from her. "I'm here to assist with the delivery of some…_items_…before I examine the specimen."

"Yes, sir," Lavina said obediently, confused. "Are there any new orders?"

His eyes narrowed into black slits. "It was _your_ idea, girl. How should I know what to do with the blasted---"

_No way…!_

Suddenly, _impossibly_, Lavina found herself staring at an expensive, high-tech sound system and more than 200 classical music CD's from nothing but the finest composers, maestros, and symphonies. Men came in, not to cart the shipment, she found, but to install the system into Sephiroth's crib for a full surround-sound experience that was sure to shake up the baby's world.

She had to keep telling herself to close her mouth.

"If I see one _hint_ of the specimen _dancing_, the CD's are going in the garbage can and I'm gouging the controls to the stereo out with a scalpel," HojoHoH seethed. "Understood?"

Lavina could only nod dumbly.

"And I still want him exposed to scientific literature! This is not to be a replacement for the lectures—just a supplement, mind you, and only that! And close your mouth, Latina. You look even more an imbecile than usual."

Hojo then proceeded to examine his infant specimen, muttering the whole time. Lavina stood frozen and mute, unable to do anything but gape as a segment of the wall was torn open to accommodate the necessary wiring and consoles for the speakers alone.

"How…?" she gasped one time.

Without pausing his work, Hojo snappily answered, "Raw data doesn't lie." But Lavina could tell he didn't like the truth the data presented one bit.

When Hojo left, Lavina couldn't help but follow him out into the hall, a loud "Thank you, sir!" bursting from her lips before she could stop it.

Hojo's lips pursed disapprovingly and he gave her the evil eye. "For _what_?" he sneered.

Lavina had to physically bite back an "It's so amazing!!" and a girlish shriek of excitement. She felt as if she was bursting at the seams with the joy of victory. It took her a long time to settle down enough to cover up for her ecstatic outpouring of gratitude.

"I'm certain that this will benefit Sephiroth's mind. I have the utmost faith in Lancaster's experiment. You won't regret this!"

He huffed and stomped away, muttering as he disappeared.

When the door shut and locked Lavina back inside, she could restrain herself no longer. Well aware that tears of joy were spilling from her eyes, she rushed to Sephiroth's cradle and swept him into her arms. Laughing in glee, she spun Sephiroth around, who was alarmed at this unfamiliar expression of excitement. Lavina didn't care. She hugged him to her heart with all her strength and kissed that angelic face. "Oh, oh Sephiroth! Do you know what this _means_?"

She kissed his tender cheek again, unable to hold back even though she knew the security cameras were on her. She was so filled with hope and love for this child that she thought she would burst.

"We've won, Sephiroth," she shouted to the heavens. "_We've won!_"

* * *

That night, when Lavina knew the security cameras would be crippled because of the pressing dark, she slipped from her bed and tiptoed from her room toward Sephiroth's high-tech nursery. She moved silently and confidently, her spirits still soaring from the victory she had won against Hojo's iron fist. _Celebrate_, Gast had said, and Lavina intended to.

She navigated carefully, feeling for features in the wall to tell her where she was. She moved slowly past the thermostat, the doorframes of the library and supply room, and turned right at the cupboards to arrive at Sephiroth's door. She could hear the soothing symphony playing softly within the room, a sweet reminder of the day's achievements, and no sounds from the deeply slumbering child. Smiling, she slipped her hand inside the middle left drawer and felt around blindly until her fingertips felt the fuzzy skin of the peach. She enclosed the precious fruit in her hand, wondering at its perfect shape and feel. She put it in her nightgown pocket and then carefully crept into Sephiroth's room.

The door opening, though silent to her, had started the child awake. She saw his glowing mako eyes flash open in surprise and search for the source of the noise in the darkness. Lavina marveled once more at little Sephiroth's keen senses and used his enhanced perception to her advantage. She hushed the baby softly as she approached him, merely an exhale given sound, but she knew that the child heard her even over the music, for he stilled at her voice.

"I have a treat for you, baby," she breathed, reaching a hand into the cradle to stroke that moonlight-soft hair. She loved the feel of that word on her lips. _Baby…little baby…little Sephiroth…_

She heard him yawn and then gurgle almost questioningly. Lavina knew that he sensed the uniqueness of this night; she had never come to him in such a way before. Gently, she gathered his warm body in her arms, cradling him, rocking him, stroking his soft cheeks as she pressed him to her heart. Sephiroth went rigid in her arms: he did not recognize this treatment, didn't understand the emotion they conveyed. Lavina could feel his confusion. Her blood began to burn violently with hatred for Hojo, who had forced her to deprive this tender soul of such precious, intimate moments between mother and child.

With a soft, soothing bounce in her step, Lavina made her way to the bathroom (which was the only area without surveillance cameras), so they could celebrate without fear.

She turned on the light and shut and locked the door behind them, turning on the bathroom fan to drown out their voices to the cameras outside, then sat on the plush rug. When she sat Sephiroth down on it, his eyes went wide. Lavina wasn't confused by this reaction, and was excited to see how he would enjoy his first encounter with warm, soft flooring.

She watched his hands pat the carpet uncertainly until he grew brave enough to entangle his hands in the fiber. She let him explore until he flopped down on his stomach so he could chew on the rug (that was how he routinely examined most things these days), and then sat him back up with a chuckle and placed the peach they had earned in his lap.

He stared at it uncomprehendingly, eyes blinking. He stared for a while, but when it did not move, light up, or make sounds, he lost interest and tried to gnaw on the rug again. Gently, she diverted his attention back to the peach by putting it before his eyes, taking his small hand, and stroking it across the fuzzy surface.

He liked that, and cooed to let her know he did.

She took the fruit from him for just a moment, making Sephiroth whine and hold out his little hands as if to take it back, but she hushed him lovingly and dug her long nails into the skin of the peach, puncturing into the juicy flesh, and peeling back the skin to reveal the true treasure. When the fruit was free of its covering, she slipped the wet fruit back into his hands and closed his thin fingers around it.

Sephiroth babbled in his own infantile language as he again poked and patted the peach, amused by its slickness. He closed his hands in and out of fists, feeling the stickiness of sugar on his skin for the first time, a sensation that seemed to mildly annoy him. Lavina held her breath as she watched his hands finish his thorough exploration, knowing that now that he had learned all he could with his fingers, he would try to sense it a different way.

Sephiroth put the peach in his mouth.

It was dropped to the floor immediately and Sephiroth let out a choking gasp, coughing and spattering in surprise. He lost his balance, and fell back against the wall of the bathtub, his head hitting the side with a _smack_. He lay on his back, stunned by both the fall and this radically new sensation.

Taste_. Sweet. _

Lavina hurriedly gathered him up, making sure he hadn't hurt himself. His eyes swam in and out of focus in a daze, but he seemed to gather himself quickly enough. Cursing her idea, she started to stand to take him back to the crib. This had not been a good idea. If she had known he would have been so stunned by the assault of such sweetness, she wouldn't have tried it.

But Sephiroth was not bothered.

He stuck his tongue out and tentatively touched it to his very sticky fingertips, face squinting at the taste, but he did it again and again, less and less timidly, until he was hungrily licking his hand. His face eased from surprise into pleasure as he became more familiar with the taste.

Lavina sat back down, still holding Sephiroth, and rubbed her own hand against the peach and extended it to him. With eyes alight, he grabbed her hand and licked the juice from her fingers.

It was the first time that Lavina had ever seen his thin, pale lips in a breathtakingly beautiful smile.

"You are an angel," she breathed to the child.

Eventually Lavina gathered the daring to pick a small chunk of the peach and let him gnaw on it with only his gums and tiny white budding teeth. Though at first she only let him chew and suck on the fruit to extract the juice, she eventually let him swallow the first food he'd ever been given.

Tiny Sephiroth ate a full half of the peach until he refused another piece, squirming and adjusting himself to sleep on his very full little stomach. Lavina held him, swaddled him in the plush bathroom rug, and rocked him as she sang him a lullaby.

In the secrecy of the bathroom, Lavina was overcome with love she had to suppress in the day, and she dared to breathe the words Hojo had forbidden her to say.

"Sephiroth, angel, I love you." And she kissed him again.

His eyes fluttered closed with that tender smile still gracing his lips.

She rocked and sang to the baby seraph until the pre-dawn hours, when she slipped him back into his prison-like crib with great sadness in the final hours of the night's darkness. She was overcome with gratitude for the taste of freedom that she had been able to give the captive child, and weighed down with the burden of the life they both must return to.

"Our little secret, okay?" she whispered into the crib.

But she wouldn't let herself believe that this would be the last precious memory they would share. She would fight on until her sacred seraph could fly free on unbound wings.

* * *

A/N: ...Thoughts? Sappy? Too sappy?


	9. Treason and Strike Two

_A/N: Despair not! This is a catalyst for something GOOD! :D_

The Marked - Chapter Nine

"Vee…Vee…Vee-uhhh…."

Lavina smiled to herself as she poured the last of today's medications into the saline solution that was to be Sephiroth's breakfast. She had a lot to be happy about this morning. Last night, Hojo had taken notice of the boy's budding teeth and was mulling over the dilemma of when to begin feeding him solid foods. (The idea had come with some prompting on her part, she admitted. All she'd had to do was innocently ask how Sephiroth would eventually fight on the battlefield as he was attached to an IV for sustenance, and suddenly it dawned on the Professor just how much of an impracticality it would be.) "Besides," he reasoned aloud, "now that he doesn't need a bottle, he can be fed without any coddling, and there's little danger of him associating Dratina with food and therefore, pleasure, if he can be taught to feed himself…"

It was a step in the right direction, at the very least, and she'd had to do very little. All there was to do was sit back and let Hojo talk himself into it.

She had hope that this IV she was preparing now might be among the last.

"Vee…Vee…."

"Hang on a moment, Sephiroth," Lavina called to the babbling baby. "I'm almost finished." She knew he wasn't looking forward to the "meal" itself, but to the bit of fruit she always secretly slipped him afterward. He began to expect it regularly, and perked up significantly around mealtime.

"Vee! Foo…Vee-uhhh…eee…."

"Is that so?" she asked. Her orders were to "encourage conversation", though she found it difficult not to reply to his babblings in a sing-song voice; Hojo would probably not appreciate it.

"Aaah Aaah…"

Hojo had instructed her to record the sounds he made, insisting that this was a major breakthrough in his communications skills, but Lavina still couldn't make heads or tails of what Sephiroth was trying to say.

"Ooooohhhh…."

"Whatever you say, Sephiroth." She casually made a note that Sephiroth had made a "vee" sound for the first time today, and then brought the bag of greenish fluid to the nursery.

He was standing when she saw him, clinging to the top of his crib to hold himself up as his legs wobbled precariously. "Vee!" he said in greeting.

"Good morning to you too, Sunshine," Lavina said, careful not to sound happy, as she knew she was being listened to. "Ready to eat?"

"Veeeeee…" he gurgled.

After Sephiroth was hooked up to his meal and Lavina turned on a lecture on chemical bonds for him to listen to, she sat in a chair and turned on the laptop, hoping to find more of Lancaster's work that she might be able to use for Sephiroth's advantage.

For a while, the pair sat in the quiet, only the quick keystrokes of Lavina's keyboard and the dull drone of Sephiroth's lecture interrupting the serene silence.

"Oooh…um. Oh-um…Oh-um!"

Lavina briefly tuned in to the lecture to hear the speaker lecture about sodium. Apparently he was picking up on it. "Sodium?" she asked Sephiroth. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Oh-ee-um…"

"So-di-um," she emphasized clearly.

Sephiroth murmured grumpily, bored with his game now that he was being corrected.

"Vee-uh?" he asked after a little while.

"What is it, Sephiroth?"

"Nah-nuh," he whined. "Naaah-Nuuuh…"

Lavina bolted to the side of the crib, alarmed. Gast's present last night had been a banana, and she had taught him the word, but she never dreamed that he'd remember it. "Hush!" she hissed, not meaning to sound harsh, but she was genuinely terrified that they would be caught. "Hush, Sephiroth!"

He blinked innocently at her, not understanding the reaction. "Nah-nuh?"

"_…potassium, most commonly found in the banana…_"

Lavina let out the breath she'd been holding, folding over the side of the cradle in relief.

She could always tell Hojo that he'd heard it from the tape.

_Thank you, __Chemical Bonds 503_ she thought

But just to be safe, she resolved not to teach Sephiroth any more names of the treats he was secretly getting at night.

"Nah-nuh, nah-nuh, nah-nuh…"

"Ba-na-na," she enunciated clearly, trying to correct him, as Hojo had instructed her to do.

He frowned and rebelliously replied. "Nah-_nuh_!"

_Oh Sephiroth, you'll give me a heart attack one of these days, and then who will take care of you?_

The thought brought her out of her optimistic mood. How long did Hojo think she was necessary? Once Sephiroth was old enough to sustain himself (which might have been four or five, by Hojo's reasoning) she would be discarded. Who would he have then? Only Hojo and his team of scientists, whose only interest in the boy was to engineer him to be the perfect being by stripping him of everything that made him human. All his emotions, all his feelings, his very soul would have to be sacrificed. Laughter, happiness, hope, and dreams would always be denied him.

Who would teach him to love? she wondered most of all. Who would love _him_?

_No one._

It was the most harrowing truth of them all.

"Vee-uh…?" She didn't hear him the first time because she was so absorbed in her heavy thoughts. "Vee-uh!"

"Oh…sorry. What do you need, Sephiroth?"

"Ooooohhh…." He cried in a long, sad exhale, sounding frightened. "Ooooohhh…."

"Oh?" she asked. The interpretation of the mournful drone hit her. "You mean, Hojo?"

The boy's perceptive skills proved true. Just as the words had left Lavina's lips, she heard the door being unlocked and the distinctive steps of the Professor. She could tell from the way he walked that he was displeased.

"Ooooohhh…" Sephiroth moaned. "Ooooohhh…."

"Oh is right," Lavina agreed under her breath. "Oh _no_…"

* * *

"Ravine, your presence will not be required here. You may wait in your bedroom," was all that Hojo had said. Lavina hadn't dared to protest, as he spoke in such icy fury that any rebellion in her was cooled. To fight would make it worse for the both of them, as past experience had proved time and time again. She had retreated to her room of her own accord, but Hojo had been quick to lock her inside.

She laid curled on her bed, hugging her knees to her chest, trying not to cry. She knew that the only reason he would send her away would be to keep her from interfering…which meant he was planning on doing something horrible to Sephiroth. She couldn't fathom what was going on; she had been allowed to witness many of his atrocities, and the thought that this would be worse than any of them made her want to die.

"Sephiroth, be strong…" she sobbed. "I'm sorry I can't be there…I'm so sorry…so sorry…"

_I'm so sorry_, a voice that was not her own whispered. _My son…my baby…I'm so sorry!_

She remembered the voice—the broken plea of Dr. Lucrecia Crescent as she was pried away from her child the moment after she had birthed him.

_Please…my son…save my son…_

She was curled into herself so tightly that it hurt, but not even the pain could distract her from the shrieking, frantic wails of Sephiroth's desperate mother.

_**Save him!**_

The door was thrown open, and a haggard Gast just beyond the threshold. Lavina bolted upright, a thousand questions springing to her lips--questions that she wasn't sure she wanted answered, as Gast clearly knew, and that knowledge haunted his normally bright and laughing eyes with horror and desperation.

He threw the key to her. "Go," he commanded.

Lavina went.

She abandoned reason, giving in to feral instincts as she sprinted. Somewhere along the way, she picked up a glass beaker, still half-full with the impurities found in mako that she'd sifted out of Sephiroth's meal earlier that day. Once she threw open the door to Sephiroth's nursery, she did not allow herself to see what the mad Professor was doing to her child, or hear Sephiroth's wrenching, wordless screams for mercy.

She didn't even remember shattering the beaker of poison mako over the Professor's head.

When she regained herself, Hojo was unconscious on the ground, surrounded in shards of green-tinted glass, and Sephiroth was crying softly, holding out his hands to her and whimpering for an embrace.

She snatched him from the cradle and ran out of the room. It wasn't until she reached her bedroom that the effects of what she'd done caused her to fall to her knees, folding over the tiny child clutched to her chest. In the crippling aftershock she could do nothing but scream. She didn't know if anyone heard her. She didn't know if anyone cared.

"Vee…Vee…" Sephiroth moaned, weakly grasping a lock of her hair in his fist. "Vee-uh…"

His body was cold, so very cold, and trembling under the shadow of death.

* * *

A team of medics came for Hojo and carried him away on a stretcher. Though Lavina had not struck him hard enough to cause permanent damage, nor had the glass or mako penetrated deep enough to be fatal, he was treated as if the trauma had been life threatening. They would not treat Sephiroth, who was struggling for breath and pale as bone, though Lavina threw herself on her knees before the medics, seized the hem of their lab coats, and pleaded shamelessly on his behalf.

Gast gently eased the struggling little body from her arms and, calmly, with tears in his eyes, hooked the baby up to a respirator and began preparing medicines to mix in an IV.

Lavina regained consciousness in her bed. Panicking, she sat upright so quickly that her head swam, but Gast heard her and brought Sephiroth to her to dispel her fears of the worst. He laid little Sephiroth, swaddled warmly in fleece blankets, in her arms. Though he was still pale and desperately weak, he was breathing regularly, his heartbeat as light and rapid as a butterfly's wings. Though his eyes were clouded with pain, he would not surrender to sleep and close them.

Lavina took him eagerly and kissed him, her tears of relief falling on his face. She stroked his moonlit hair and caressed his face soothingly, choking words of assurances past her sobs.

"Vee…" Sephiroth sighed, and he relaxed in her arms. "Vee-uh…"

"He's been calling for you since Hojo began," Gast said sadly. "I think he'll finally sleep now that he's with you."

Lavina looked to the infant in surprise. "Calling me?"

"Haven't you heard him?"

_Vee-uh_. Lavina.

"You know my name," she whispered to Sephiroth.

"Vee…" he sighed softly, his eyes fluttering closed at last.

She knew then that fighting would never be enough. Yes, she had won Sephiroth the music, and their sweet victories were frequently celebrated with forbidden fruit, but it would never be enough.

No matter what Lavina would manage to win for the child, Sephiroth would always be doomed to the life of an experimental lab rat.

And sooner or later, it would cost him his life.

"What am I going to do?" she moaned in anguish.

Gast had no answer for her.

_What am I going to do…_?

* * *

A/N2: panic not! next chapter is going to be sunshiney. Will work with much haste!


	10. Ally

The Marked - Chapter Ten

She was sure that these were her final days with Sephiroth.

Hojo was still hospitalized (though his wounds were barely more than superficial) and it had been four days. Apparently he was very much conscious and causing a lot of grief for the medical staff in the hospital wing, but Lavina received no orders, no shipments of medication, and no reprimand.

This lack of the normal essentials of their laboratory lives frightened her to death. She knew that it meant she was to be disposed of soon.

So, knowing she was as good as dead anyway, she fed Sephiroth real homemade baby food. Sephiroth got his meals from whatever she received for her rations, mashed into an easily digestible paste. He ate chicken pot pie (which looked gross when it was all liquefied but Sephiroth quite enjoyed the taste), oatmeal, and even a chocolate cookie softened in milk. He still held a clear preference for fruit, even over the cookie, and Lavina was glad to give him all the oranges, apples, grapes, and bananas she received.

She broke all the rules, hoping to give Sephiroth the time of his life while she still had the chance. They played peek-a-boo. Lavina tickled his soft tummy until he wriggled in laughter. Sephiroth ate whatever he wanted and whenever he wanted it. He was allowed to nap as much as he desired and wake up when he was ready. She spoke to him in a sappy baby voice, and they snuggled and kissed often. She held him in her arms and waltzed to the classical music, singing improvisational stanzas the whole time. At night, he slept curled beside her under her heavy quilt and wrapped in her arms.

Gast came by often to play with the baby as well. He brought no news of the outside world, and they never spoke of Hojo, but he also seemed to sadly accept that Lavina was soon to be a dead woman. His gifts of fruit snacks, warm baby clothes, and musical toys were much appreciated by the infant, however. Sephiroth had never been happier in his short life.

Lavina took courage to face her impending death from that genuine smile and sweet, innocent laugh. Though she was terrified about how she would die and what Sephiroth's bleak future would bring, those sweet days made her looming sacrifice seem worth it.

If she could have been promised that Sephiroth's happiness would last, she told herself, it would have been all the easier to bear.

* * *

"Hojo has recovered," Gast said emotionlessly. "He plans to return to work tomorrow."

Lavina sighed deeply, closing her eyes to hold back tears. "So…these are my final hours."

Gast took her hand. It was a moment before Lavina could still her shaking shoulders and suppress the sobs.

"If I knew I had to die anyway," she laughed bitterly, "I would have hit the monster harder."

"Gaia knows he deserves it," Gast agreed.

"Thank you," she said. "For all you've done. Knowing that you'll still be here…it gives me hope for little Seph." She looked at the baby with wet eyes. "You will take care of him…won't you?"

"I swear it," he vowed. "I'll do everything in my power."

They both watched as Sephiroth bit on a light-up teething ring, gurgling and kicking his feet.

"He doesn't deserve this life," Lavina said.

"If I had known that my Jenova Project would condemn him to this," Gast replied, "I would never have even begun my career as a scientist."

"It's not you," Lavina assured him. "It's Hojo. It always has been."

"Sephiroth was born from my discovery, Lavina."

"But you love him. You're the closest thing to a father that he has…closer than Hojo!"

Gast smiled wryly. "I'll do my best to live up to that, Lavina.

"I'll tell him about you," he continued. "For him to know that he had someone who loved him like her own son…it might change his life, to know a little of his mother."

"I'm not—"

"But you are," Gast said softly. "You have earned the title of mother a thousand times over."

"I don't want to take Lucrecia's place," she argued.

"You aren't. I'm sure that she would be delighted to know that you loved her son so much when no one else would. I think that is what she most desired, above her life."

Sephiroth yawned and rubbed his eyes with his fists, discarding his toy and saying "'leep…'leepy…"

"He's tired," Lavina said. "I'd…better put him to bed."

"Lavina."

She turned back to Gast one last time.

"You are the strongest woman I've ever known."

She nodded. "Goodbye, Gast."

* * *

She woke up to the sound of a power drill at 6:30 in the morning. She was very confused, but the last of her tears had dried, and she was ready to face whatever came with a straight face. She gave her little seraph a tender kiss, told him she loved him, and shut the door so that if he happened to awaken, he wouldn't see this.

She wandered about her small prison, looking for the source of the sound, barely daring to breathe.

She found the source of the noise easily enough. A man dressed in a smartly pressed suit was in Sephiroth's nursery, lying on his back, his head and upper torso under the baby's crib, using what was indeed a power drill on something. Using a very unsteady left hand, he drilled away on the underside of the cradle, pausing now and again to blow away stray metal dust from the supporting beams he was attacking.

"Ah," he said after a while. "Blast it. Could you hand me another bolt? I left them on the counter, and it would save me a trip up there."

Baffled, Lavina nonetheless dropped the metal bolt in the hand he extended from the underside of the crib.

"Thank you kindly," he said casually, and then began his drill work anew.

Lavina watched in awe, unable to do anything but watch in bewilderment.

"Oh, and if you wouldn't mind," he began after a while, "gather up all the toys and clothes Gast brought for Seph. I'll be done in just a second, here."

"O…kay…" She did as he asked, and soon there was a sizable mound of baby supplies in the nursery.

"Thanks. Big help, that."

"Er…"

"Hand them here."

And so she did. One by one, she placed them in the man's hand, which then put them carefully under the crib.

When everything in the pile had been put away, the man closed a panel and Lavina heard the click of a lock. He slid himself out from under the crib then, sitting and leaning against it as he held a tiny silver key up to her.

"What---"  
"Thought it'd be a nice place to hide all the stuff from the Professor," he explained as he brushed the dust of metal and wood off his dark suit. "It's quite inconspicuous, if I do say so myself. The compartment's locks are so small that they look like screws, so there's little chance of the old buzzard finding it even if he got the hunch to check under there." He patted the underside of the crib appreciatively. "There's lots more room, too, if you would like to continue your collection of commodities. Oh, and to open it, you unlock the third lock, then the first, then the sixth. Got it? You don't even have to turn the key; just a jab will do the trick."

"You…to _hide—_?"

"Ah," he sighed. "Here comes trouble. Talk to you after, alright?"

"_What?_"

Hojo came in mumbling grumpily. "What are they teaching doctors these days? Fools! All of them!"

When he entered the nursery, he didn't even pause to look at Lavina, and continued on to the crib. "Ah, the specimen is still _alive_, I see," he grumbled. "Kudos, Berea."

"Lavina has kept excellent care of your charge, sir," the man in the suit answered for her. "I came in this morning to find the laboratory in ship shape."

Hojo scoffed an acknowledgement of the man's presence and picked Sephiroth up from where he was sleeping in the crib. Lavina stared; Sephiroth slept with her in her bed last night, and she distinctly remembered dressing him in blue fleece footie pajamas. She hadn't the faintest clue how he had gotten into his crib and dressed in his normal hospital gown.

"Oooohhh…" Sephiroth whined upon waking up to see the Professor's face.

"Quiet, imp," Hojo seethed. "You haven't been properly measured in days, the least you can do is be _quiet_ about it."

"Oh, but Lavina's measurements are very meticulous, sir. She has kept a marvelous record in anticipation of your return."

Lavina had done no such thing! And yet, plugged into the Sephiroth's file on her computer was the last few days' worth of data on the infant's growth and vital signs.

"Acceptable job, Marine," Hojo admitted grudgingly as he scrolled through the numbers. "I'm not so very far behind as I believed, it seemed. At least I managed to make _something_ out of you."

Lavina stared open-mouthed as Hojo finished a brief examination of Sephiroth and the surroundings. Hojo clearly noted that there was the proper amount of IV bags and medication bottles in the trash can (indicating proper feeding), the right number of hospital gowns in the dirty linens basket (suggesting proper hygienic practices), and the right number of minutes recorded on the tape player, proving that Sephiroth had received his scientific literature as ordered.

Everything showed that Lavina had cared for Sephiroth exactly as Hojo had ordered in his absence.

"I told you, sir," the man in the suit ventured. "Lavina allowed nothing to go amiss while you were gone. In fact, if you look here, you'll see that she even took the initiative to…"

"I get the point, _boy_," Hojo sneered. "Don't they train you to be slightly less obtrusive?"

"I thought surely you would be as delighted as I was with her faithfulness to her duties." He winked at Lavina and gave her a reassuring thumbs-up behind the scientist's back.

"Well I'm _not_. When I come tomorrow, be quiet. Your sniveling is giving me a splitting headache. And Marina, shut your mouth, you look like a gaping fish. It would be a tragedy to see my flawless specimen imitating that stupid facial expression. And _don't_ let him sleep in any more, Selina! He should have been up a half hour ago! I am most ashamed of you!"

"I'm afraid that is my fault, sir," the man interjected. "I came early and very rudely demanded a tour of the place and rundown of her duties and I very foolishly lost track of time…"

Hojo left in a worse mood than he came.

But that was that.

When the Professor was gone, the man in the suit grinned. "So, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

"The data files?" she demanded of him.

"Fabricated," he answered smoothly.

"The medicines?"

"Thrown out the window."

"The minutes on tape player?"

"Hacked. Also the tapes from the video cameras and voice bugs that creep has around here."

"He must remember that I hit him!"

"Manipulate Materia. He thinks he fell into the lab bench and mashed a few chemical beakers into his head on the way down."

"You sneaked him into the crib behind my back and dressed him normally?"

He bowed. "Guilty as charged, ma'am."

"And the cabinet for the toys…_why?!_"

The man laughed. When he regained himself, still smiling, he extended a hand warmly.

"Damian Nicholai of the Turks, ma'am. I've been assigned to protect Sephiroth."

* * *

A/N: :D


	11. The Truce

The Marked - Chapter Eleven

Damian Nicholai was unlike any Turk Lavina had ever seen.

He was dressed as one, certainly. His suit was midnight black, as was his silken tie, and the pristine white, collared shirt shone like a beacon around his throat. True to form, his clothing was unblemished by so much as a single wrinkle, and was pressed and cleaned with intimidating precision. What wasn't black was white; gray did not exist.

Some Turks sported quite extreme hairstyles (indeed, it seemed to be the only individuality they were allowed), but his shoulder-length, ramrod-straight, black hair was pulled back neatly into an inconspicuous ponytail. The only strands allowed to escape the rest were a group of chin-length bangs, which draped across the right side of his face in three dark, distinct streaks. He was very fair skinned, with a delicately angled face, slightly thinner and slanted eyes, and thin, colorless lips. He was tall, around 6 feet in height, and stood with a strict militaristic posture -- straight-backed, head up, and shoulders squared confidently. He was thinly built and fine boned, but paradoxically, did not seem frail or lanky despite these traits; indeed, he seemed imbued with a subtle, quiet strength, perhaps from his training as a Turk, or even some deeper trait of vigor he had been gifted with.

At first glance, he seemed to be the average Turk, but it didn't take Lavina long to notice the quirks that set him apart from his peers.

His demeanor was worlds away from the solemn countenance of the other Turks she had encountered. His eyes (a dizzying emerald flecked with earthen tones of brown, amber, and gold) always sparkled with boyish mirth and innocence. He was not quiet and reserved, nor sly and deceitful as most members of his profession were required to be, and his eyes sparkled with this guilelessness, optimism, warm spiritedness, and genuine vitality. His thin lips were always tiled upward in the subtlest smile in such a way that left Lavina wondering if he was physically capable of a frown. He spoke candidly, and was quick to laugh and make others laugh. The prison Lavina and Sephiroth were confined to was more bearable with his bright presence, and became something like home to all of them.

And it made Lavina suspicious.

For all his pleasantries, she would not let herself be convinced that his arrival was anything but a cleverly disguised dark omen.

* * *

Damian, nearly immediately after Hojo left, had picked up baby Sephiroth, set him on his lap, and began to play with the infant.

"You shouldn't do that!" Lavina cried, mortified.

Damian closed his mouth, pausing making nonsense noises that mimicked Sephiroth's to give her a reply. "You disapprove?" he asked with one eyebrow raised.

She sighed, exasperated. "No, but Hojo…"

"Just ignore the old windbag," Damian replied casually, shrugging. "This is a special occasion. I've been looking forward to meeting this little chap."

"You'll get us both killed!"

He laughed kindly. "_That_ is not on my agenda. Relax! You look white as a sheet. You can even take a nap if you want, I'll look after squirt," he offered, ruffling Sephiroth's hair affectionately.

"Oh, Gaia," Lavina breathed, rubbing her tired eyes.

"Fine fellow, isn't he?" Damian beamed, ignoring her discomfort with the situation. "I thoroughly approve of the little guy."

"That's great," she sighed. "Just great."

He smiled widely. "Isn't it? I have a feeling the two of us men will get along splendidly."

Lavina bit back a retort that if he insisted on blatantly endangering her child with his outlawed (though secretly appreciated) behavior, she and he weren't.

* * *

She worked overzealously, frantically trying to do everything she was commanded, hoping that her fervor would make up for Damian's disregard for the rules. If Damian played with Sephiroth, Lavina saw to it that the infant was fed and cleaned before hand, with the science lecture tapes playing in the background. Unfortunately, Damian had grown tired of the droning professor, and had disposed of the tapes in a unique way. Lavina found Sephiroth chewing on them later: after Damian had pulled out the film, he had snapped them in half drawn a variety of silly, laughing faces on them in permanent marker. They quickly became Sephiroth's favorite toys.

Lavina withdrew money from her own account to purchase more tapes through an online provider, praying that Hojo's surveillance wasn't so strict that he monitored her internet activity. They came just in time, and when Hojo commented on the change from the literature he had provided, she shakily explained that Sephiroth would benefit from the variety. He bought it, but didn't seem as convinced as Lavina would have liked him to be.

Damian often asked her what the matter was, seeming to be oblivious to fact that his overtly traitorous behavior was causing her stress. She had no words for him, and tried to keep her distance as much as possible to avoid a possibly heated argument.

She was online, ordering more tapes (the batch she had just received had mysteriously disappeared) when she heard a foreign sound, one so unfamiliar that she stood in alarm.

Sephiroth, her Sephiroth, was _laughing_. This was more than the innocent little giggles she had coaxed from the solemn child before; the infant was shrieking in mirth, laughing so hard that he often had to pause to cough breathlessly. Whatever it was Damian was doing, Sephiroth found it hysterical. The sounds of his joy filled their prison, unhindered by white walls of stone.

She was in her room the rest of the day, lying on her stomach on her bed, staring at the headboard but not seeing anything. After a while, Damian became worried by her absence, and knocked on her locked door.

"Miss Lavina? Are you all right?" Lavina didn't let herself hear the genuine concern in his voice.

"I'm sick," she lied. "Put Sephiroth to bed for me."

"All right," he said hesitantly. "Is there something I can get for you?"

"_Leave me alone!_" she wailed violently.

"All right, all right, I'm going, I'm going…"

Lavina didn't sleep that night, consumed by the injustice of it all. It should have been her, who loved the baby most of all, that had been in there to make him laugh so truly.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair that Damian, who had known the infant for not even a week, could already coax such rapture from the tortured child, when all of her love had not brought him the joy she longed to give him.

It wasn't fair that he could do as he pleased as she reaped the consequences: the harrowing nightmares of Sephiroth's punishment, of him being ripped from her arms, when Hojo discovered Damian's doings.

It wasn't fair that when Hojo found out what he had done, _she_ would the one to be torn from him. Sephiroth would lose her, the woman who ached only to be his mother for the rest of his life.

It wasn't fair.

She was only trying to protect him, the only way that she knew how: surrendered. It wasn't like she _wanted_ to be so callous to the tender infant…

It wasn't fair…

It wasn't fair that she woke to the sounds of Sephiroth cooing "'Mee-an!" so affectionately to the stranger that was going to bring a world of hurt into his life.

* * *

She fed him as she had been before Hojo's "fall". Hojo had begun to arrange a new feeding plan with solids for the baby, but until an appropriate diet was formulated, it was business as usual – the IV. Sephiroth didn't mind, he was more than used to it by now, and even enjoyed the time he was left alone to absorb his nutrients.

Damian, however, wasn't used to such a routine.

"What in sweet Gaia is _that_?" the exploded, pointing accusingly at the IV.

"His breakfast," Lavina replied simply.

"'Mee-an!" Sephiroth greeted the Turk warmly, grinning. Lavina pretended not to hear, through it wrenched her heart, as she had received no such greeting from the boy.

"Hiya, Seph!" Damian chirped, waving to the baby. His countenance turned solemn, however, when he addressed Lavina. "He's always fed this way?"

She simply shrugged nonchalantly, not averting her attention from recording the boy's statistics for the day.

"Leviathan! Why is it _green_?" he seethed.

"I don't know, Damian," she said, highly irritated with his prying. "Hojo's orders. Why question it?"

"Why question it?" he cried. "_Why_? How about to see what kind of poison that monster is pumping into the poor boy?!"

"Hojo wouldn't poison his prize specimen."

His voice was flat and scathing. "So even _you_ see him that way." His ever-present smile and the sparkle in his eyes were gone.

Lavina dropped the clipboard and the pen in shock. _How dare he…!!_

"Get out." She forced her voice to be calm, though she spoke through gritted teeth.

"Get out?" he asked. "So you can watch uselessly as he's tortured?"

Lavina snapped.

"_**Get out**_!" she screamed. "How _dare_ you? Get out! Get _out_! _**Get out of my sight**__!_" Her voice was so harsh that Sephiroth began to cry, frightened by her tone of voice.

Damian left, beet red in the face.

When her rage abated, she turned back to Sephiroth. He was still whimpering, true tears leaking from his frightened eyes.

"I'm…I'm sorry, Sephiroth…I didn't mean to—"

"'Mee-an," he moaned weakly. "'Mee-an."

"_Don't you ever say that monster's name again_!"

It came out before she could check herself, and Sephiroth was stunned into silence.

She hated herself…no, she hated _Damian_…for making her slip and speak so harshly to her little angel.

She sat alone in the corner chair and cried in shame.

* * *

"Miss Lavina?"

Lavina didn't turn as she heard Damian enter, nor did she respond. She was too tired to fight him, too exhausted in her heart. In the darkness of the night, she held the sleeping Sephiroth in her arms, sitting in a chair and rocking him softly back and forth, back and forth, staring at the blank wall with unseeing eyes.

"Miss Lavina—"

"What do you want now?" she choked breathlessly. She was barely capable of hearing her own voice.

He walked toward her slowly, his footsteps echoing in the tiled room. When he reached her side, he knelt.

"Miss Lavina…My actions today, I am—"

"Don't be sorry," she said. "You…you were in the right. Se-Sephiroth is so happy…with you…"

He paused. "You are crying."

"I am not," she lied, but was too weak to refute the claim any further.

"You are. And it's my fault."

"You'll take good care of him, won't you? When…when I'm gone. You'll make him laugh, like you did today…"

"Lavina—"

"Won't you?" she demanded desperately. She wanted his word, his oath.

He bowed his head and grasped one of her hands in both of his, pressing his forehead to his fingertips. "Lavina, I am so sorry. I was shocked, that's all, that he had to be treated this way. It's no excuse for the things I said. I've never questioned your love for the boy…I am so deeply sorry that I insulted that sacred bond. I know it's not your fault…the way he is treated. You swallow your pride and surrender to Hojo because you love him. It's the greatest sacrifice I've ever seen any woman make for her child. And I…I offended your strength, your honor."

Lavina said nothing, only rocked the sleeping baby back and forth.

"I never wanted to rob him from you."

_But that's what you did,_ she thought without bitterness.

"He may laugh for me, but that's because he knows I'm all fun. You're the one he loves as a parent. He trusts you. He _loves_ you, I could see it in his eyes from the first time I saw him. When Hojo hurts him, it's _you_ he calls for, not me. I could never overshadow that place you hold in his heart."

Lavina didn't know what to say.

"Do you believe it?" he asked her.

She looked down at the sleeping child. Did she, she wondered?

"If it would be easier, I'll step down. There is…another Turk that can replace me. Kris, perhaps. He's a fine gentleman, and he'll be able to restrain his tongue and do the duty properly…."

"Don't go."

She said it so softly that Damian could not understand her. "Miss?"

"Don't go," she repeated. "You give him something that I don't know how to. You make him so happy…I want him to feel that joy. His life is so bleak, he needs your light. I…I need your light. It gives me…hope…that someday Sephiroth might…" She stopped. That Sephiroth might what? She didn't know. This hope that Damian brought, it couldn't be defined. That he would be free? That he could be happy? None of these desires of hers seemed fulfilled by his light, and yet she could not deny that it was the promise of something truly great.

She just didn't know what.

"A truce, then?" he asked. "I'll be a lot more cautious, and you can be a little more forgiving when I slip up." She couldn't see his sheepish smile, but she knew it was plastered on his face plain as daylight.

Lavina laughed softly. "Agreed." They shook hands on it.

"Then I'll retire for the night. You could use some time with Seph, I know how much good it does you. I'll be guarding the door. I'll hear if you call."

"Thank you, Damian."

He stood and began to leave, but stopped at the door. "Erm," he began hesitantly. "I um…got you something. It's kind of lame…I feel like I'm bribing you for your forgiveness, which I guess I am…but eh…my sister said you might enjoy them. So you can…blame her."

He set something on the counter and left, uncharacteristically flustered on the way out.

She didn't move until sunrise, content to rock Sephiroth and contemplate the things that had been said, and eventually drift into a light sleep.

At dawn, she saw what it was that Damian had left behind.

_Again, I am so sorry for the way I behaved yesterday,_ his note read. _I __**will**__ improve myself. Anyway, in the outside world it's Valentine's Day so…_

"Oh Gaia," she breathed. On the counter, next to Sephiroth's bottles of medications, were a dozen red roses and a box of chocolates.

"You're making me take too many risks, Damian," she lamented as she pulled a truffle from the box and fed it to a curious Sephiroth. "You'll be the death of me yet…"

She shook her head, smiling as she pulled another chocolate out and fed it to an eager Sephiroth, who had quickly devoured the first and was whining for more.

"Just don't tell Hojo," she told the baby as she wiped the remains of the candy from his face.

Sephiroth grinned at her, his two teeth still smeared with melted chocolate.

* * *

A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! Remember to keep your local Vincent in your thoughts--he's having a bad day. Go figure. Lucrecia really did a number on the guy...


	12. The Appeasement

The Marked - Chapter Twelve

"So why are you here?"

Damian raised his head from the floor. He was lying on his back, Sephiroth propped up beside him, playing with the toys that they had gotten out for the evening. "You object?" he asked.

Lavina shook her head, finishing up the last of Sephiroth's charts. "No…I like having you here. But…it makes no sense! Don't Turks have better things to do than babysit?"

Damian chuckled lightheartedly, lying back down on his clasped hands behind his head. "Most do," he admitted with a wink. "I'm a lucky exception."

Sephiroth took his green teething ring and stuffed it in Damian's mouth, loudly protesting when he spat it out.

"I'd humor him if I were you," Lavina advised.

Damian allowed the baby to fold it in half and jam it in his mouth again. "Mmmm…yum yum," he said through a full mouth, but Sephiroth had lost interest in him and was tinkering with his blocks now. When the baby was fully occupied with the blocks, Damian spat the ring out.

"So you're the _lucky_ exception?" Lavina asked laughingly, amused.

"How many Turks can say that they get to play with toys all day?"

Lavina sighed, shaking her head. "I guess that depends on what men define 'toys' to be."

Damian laughed. "You've got a point there."

While Lavina filed the day's papers away, the three enjoyed a moment of peace. Sephiroth was rolling a toy truck along a road Damian had drawn on a spare napkin (humming "Vroom, vroom, vrooooooom!" just as the Turk had taught him), Lavina was fulfilling the last of the day's duties, and Damian was content to lie on his back next to the baby, watching him play with a sense of wonder even as he stood (or laid, in this case) as his guard.

"The long story is," Damian began just as Lavina locked the file for the night, "Hojo got paranoid a few months back. Turns out he and Hollander, another scientist here at Shinra, are having a bout of professional competition that promises to get ugly. Hojo's afraid that Hollander might try to steal his work, and had been demanding a bodyguard for quite a while now. They're both working on various aspects of the Jenova Project and are at each other's throats trying to get an edge over the other. It was getting out of hand."

"So you got sent in?"

"Yeah. Someone had to give the old stinker what he wanted or we'd never hear the end of it. You can only tell him 'no' so many times and in so many ways, and he had some legitimate threats up his sleeve too. In the end, I ended up being the appeasement. As long as I'm here and he thinks I'm a big bad Turk doing his big bad job as a guard, things should stay under control."

"So you volunteered because no one else would?"

He chuckled, but only after an awkward hesitation. The laugh was nervous and quiet this time, sad and contemplative. "I wouldn't use the word…_volunteer_…exactly."

Lavina knew when she was treading on dangerous ground, and kept quiet.

Damian shook his head, his usual smile back on. "I'm happy to be here. I truly am. It doesn't matter how I got here – because I'm here!"

Lavina smiled awkwardly, nodded, and continued with her work.

"You remind me of my little nephew," Damian mused to Sephiroth. "He's about your age. You might be good friends, someday. He'd like that. He's a quiet little fellow, much like yourself. You two would get along grandly, I should think."

"Nephew?" Lavina asked. Even though he had not been speaking to her, it was not an interruption to any of them. Between the infant, the Turk, and the makeshift mother, they considered almost everything common ground – conversation included.

"My older sister's boy," he specified. "Name's Tseng. They live back in my hometown in Wutai. Good kid…I think he'll turn all right." He stood up, supporting his weight entirely on his left hand (which he seemed to have an odd preference for, especially for one so insistent that he was right-handed), and brushed his suit, though the immaculately cleaned floors would leave not a speck of dust on his uniform. "It would be good for Seph to get with some kids his own age, don't you think? Make some friends? Have some fun?

"Come to think of it…Hollander's got two boys he's been working on right here at Shinra…"

Lavina knew that mischievous spark in Damian's eye, the glimmer of a hatching plot. Though she knew that his only aim was to help Sephiroth, his bold schemes shocked her still.

Though, true to his word, he had held back, and Lavina, in turn, had been more tolerant and forgiving of the forbidden amenities that Damian just couldn't resist.

"I'll lay low for a while longer," he promised, and Lavina breathed easier. The last scheme he had talked her into was a thread's breadth away from disaster.

It was baffling that she got less and less angry at him with every mishap he made. Though they both were compromising between Damian's risk and Lavina's caution to get along, Lavina sometimes felt Damian stealthily dragging her to his side of the spectrum to (intentionally or not) win her over. The infuriating thing was that it worked – every time.

"Seph's out of formula," Damian noted, shaking the last cold drops of milk onto his wrist.

"Oh, I'll go—"

"Let me get it this time." And he was gone before she could protest.

"Stubborn," Lavina called after him.

"Guilty," he responded. "Anything else you need?"

"The green goopy stuff. There's half a can in the cabinet that I couldn't force him to finish this morning. Heat it up, will you? Hojo says he needs it all."

While Damian prepared Sephiroth's final meal, Lavina prepared the baby for bed. Sadly, she had to change him out of his warm pajamas and into the usual tiny gowns; Hojo was due in the morning, and Lavina couldn't afford to gamble that she could dress him properly before he came. She laid him on his back in his crib, patting his stomach as she gently pressed adhesive probes to his head, chest, and arms. Despite his protests that he was "Not 'leepy", he could barely keep his eyes open. He'd had a long day of play, and his energy was spent.

"Hang on, Buddy, you've got to finish your goop. Don't fall asleep yet."

But he did. Before she could finish adjusting the probes, his chest was rising and falling regularly with the soft breaths of peaceful slumber.

She decided not to wake him. She could always dump the goop down the sink and say she had fed him as she had been ordered. Sephiroth really disliked the stuff anyway, and more of it ended up spat on the tray and floor than swallowed.

Damian was rubbing off on her, she decided. He'd make a rebel of her yet.

But she'd do it behind his back. She wasn't sure she wanted him to know he'd rubbed off so much on her; he'd never let her forget it.

She heard empty bottles fall from the shelf to hit the tile floor with a cascade of hollow clatters. Damian was in the kitchen, hissing something in frustration. Another cabinet was opened, and this time it was glass that she heard shatter against the ground. The din took her by surprise.

"Are you all right in there?" Lavina asked.

"Fine," he snapped, terse and on edge. "Just _fin_—"

Something broke. She didn't know what it was, but it made such a racket that Sephiroth was awakened and had begun to cry.

Lavina left Sephiroth, knowing that he would fuss himself back to sleep and be right as rain in the morning. Damian, she wasn't so sure about. It had taken him an exceptionally long time to complete such a simple task.

"Damian?" she asked as she approached the kitchenette.

"_Don't_ come in here…!" he cried fearfully.

But it was too late to hide what he had done.

* * *

_She saw her son. Really saw him. _

_Despite what Hojo later recorded, they had been no dreams, and certainly no hallucinations. No, her visions were reality, or would shortly be. Of that, Lucrecia was absolutely certain._

_And she knew beyond doubt that the warrior she saw was the same soul that resided within her womb._

_The first time, she had seen only flames. Searing, scorching flames that separated her from the shadowy figure in the distance. She called out a name (what name, she wondered?) and reached into the fires, knowing she had to reach the shadow, but not knowing its identity. She swore she felt the heat, suffocated in the smoke. When she awoke in her hospital bed, she was soaked in sweat, but everything was calm. Yet she was haunted by phantom wounds. Though her arms were unmarred as ever, it was only after they treated her as if she had been severely burned that the pain subsided._

_She swore that it was real. On some level, in some other time, it had to be._

_In the second vision, she saw him._

_How she knew this was her son, she didn't know, but she __**knew**__ this __**was**__ her son. He was grown into a man; a man tall and strong in stature, a warrior. He stood amid the flames, and though they licked his cloak, dancing around him, he was not affected. He stood in terrible beauty, immune to the fires that suffocated his mother, looking beyond her, deep into the blackness behind her._

_Silver hair, she noticed. _Impossible!_ she thought. _Surely a trick of the light…

_And it was long_. _It fell easily to his thighs, and danced like moonlit whips in the blistering winds. _And my peaked bangs…he has them! _And so he did. It was the only link she could rightfully claim that this godlike figure had inherited from her. She stood in awe that she would bear such a magnificent creature. _

_"My son!" she tried to cry. "Son…it's me…I'm your mother! Don't you remember me?"_

_But he would not move, would not even look at her. His cold refusal of her presence was more sinister than it should have been. Logically, he might have been deafened by the roar of the fires, and had not been able to hear her weak voice over the din. She knew this, and yet she knew it could not be._

_It meant something._

_Something that made her blood run cold with an unidentifiable terror._

_She reached out to him, arms wide in yearning, seeking comfort from the child she had loved with everything she was, screaming desperately for him still._

_He looked at her, and her cries ceased._

_His eyes were green, impossibly, as she had desired, but this was not the rich green of life. _Mako green. _The hue of the deadly poison he was exposed to even within her now, the color resulting from his twisted, tainted creation. _

_Her son's eyes were not that of a human. If eyes are the portals to the soul, than her son must have not possessed one, for there was dark __**nothingness**__ behind his venom eyes. His gaze toward her was blank, devoid of anything, filled only with an oblivion beyond suffering, beyond anguish and despondency, beyond rage and vengeance, and beyond hope, identity, and purpose._

_Lucrecia stared into the inhuman eyes of her son to behold his broken, shattered soul. _

_She had awakened so agitated that she could not relate what she had seen to Hojo, though he pressed her mercilessly. For days, she could not speak, and only stared at the ceiling blankly, one hand clutched to her swollen abdomen in a feeble protection._

A Premonition?_ She didn't want to believe that something would cause her firstborn to gaze at her with such horrific absence of soul, but the relentless visions were so pressing that could not deny their reality._

_Every night she stared into those haunting eyes, and could not escape them in the day. Questions about her dreams consumed her waking and sleeping life. _

_What did it mean? _

_The third and final vision came the moment her water broke, and answered her question. She would spend the rest of eternity wishing that she had never asked._


	13. The Clumsy Turk

The Marked - Chapter Thirteen

It was Sephiroth's bottles that she had heard drop, and they were all over the floor. The glass she had heard turned out to be Hojo's beakers of nasty chemicals, and the contents of the containers were blotches of colors, running into one another, some bubbling, hissing, or combusting into short lived plumes of flame as they reacted with one another. Damian was hurriedly stamping out the fires, trying to salvage the few of Sephiroth's bottles that weren't melted by the chemicals, and throwing water on the floor, which helped dilute some solutions and aggravated others.

"I'll clean it up!" he insisted, but he was having trouble unknotting his hands from the washcloths in the drawer. He winced as the paper towels he had tried to use to soak up the chemical mess burst into flame.

Lavina hadn't had a formal chemistry class in four years, but she remembered enough to know that Damian's flailing wasn't helping any. Barely managing to keep her cool, she reached for one fire blanket and threw it over Damian, whose jacket was smoking mysteriously, and threw another over the chemical spill. "Out," she commanded, and Damian finally stopped trying to help and sidled dejectedly out the door, cowering under the fire blanket and Lavina's livid glare.

"_What_ is _wrong_ with you?!" Lavina demanded, shoving him back a few steps with open palms.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry…I said I'd clean it up—"

"We don't have the _supplies_ to clean that up safely!" she yelled, only barely aware that Sephiroth was crying in the other room, frightened by her angry voice. "Do you have _any_ idea what you've done?!"

"I just—"

"Hojo's coming _tomorrow morning_! How am I supposed to explain _that_?!"

"I'll explain everything—" He pulled the fire blanket over his face, hiding like a child. If Lavina hadn't been so angry, she might have laughed at his cowardice.

She did, however, laugh bitterly at his suggestion. "You'll explain," she said. "You'll explain _what_?!"

His shoulders seemed to sag. "I—"

"Hm? No worthy excuse."

"No," he breathed. "I'll explain that—I'm not fit for the job anymore, and I'll ask to be discharged."

That doused the fire in Lavina. "D-Damian—?"

He sighed, deep and long, but offered no explanation.

"What are you not telling me?" Lavina whispered.

Under the fire blanket, Damian's posture sagged. He shuffled his feet nervously, the half-melted soles of his shoes making a sticky squishing sound and leaving blotches of molten rubber on the tile.

"That I'm a very, very poor Turk, who probably should have been discharged quite some time ago."

Lavina rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Look, I know I blow up when I'm scared. I didn't mean—to be so harsh. So you're a little clumsy. Well…as far as faults go that's really minor. That doesn't mean anything about your ability as a Turk."

He said nothing.

"I'm sorry for my temper. You didn't deserve that, especially when you were just trying to help. And for Gaia's sake, will you take that silly fire blanket off your head and speak to me like a man?"

He let the blanket slip off into a heap at his feet. "Fair enough," he breathed. "I won't hide anymore."

She had thought he was referring to the blanket, but was surprised when his left hand began to tinker with the straps of the fingerless glove on his right hand.

Until now, she'd never given much thought to the glove. At first she thought it odd that he wore any gloves at all, for Turks kept their hands bare as a matter of policy, and it was even more peculiar that he wore only one to cover the palm of his right hand. After a while it had become just one more oddity about the Turk, and as such was just a natural part of who he was.

The thought that it might have served a purpose had never crossed her mind.

Until, as he slipped the leather glove off his right palm, she saw the scars.

Thick, red lines lacerated his pale skin, like the lashes of a whip, but the wounds had been deeper and harsher. From the severity of the scars, Lavina could tell that too much had been damaged, too many muscles had been severed, for his hand to ever be functional again. The thick, angry red scar tissue only made his skin so thick that he couldn't even begin to clench it. His fingers, now that she noticed, twitched slightly, out of his control, trembling weakly of their own accord independent from their master's will.

And he had always insisted that he was right handed, and had fought to use it as normally as he could as much as possible in stubborn denial of his handicap.

Suddenly everything made sense.

"Every other Turk has some use, and we're short on staff so there was no one to spare but me. They assigned me to be the appeasement because I'm completely useless."

She took his wounded hand in both of hers, not missing the tremor that ran through him as she did so. "Does it hurt?" she asked.

"It is still…very new." She took that as a yes, and was more careful, but did not release him.

She ran tentative fingers along the lacerations, breathless. "When?"

"A month ago."

"How?"

He retracted his hand and gently began to lace it back into the glove, his left hand struggling to fasten the straps properly. "I was nearing the end of my training – it was my final combat test before I would be sworn in as a full-fledged Turk captain. I was overly excited at finally rising through the ranks, and at first my trainer was so easy that it was laughable – I didn't know he was purposely going easy on me to see if my defenses would slip – and I got arrogant. I…well…" he held up his useless hand. "I do believe they call it hubris. Excessive pride…before a fall."

Lavina's gaze traveled from his blank face, to his hand and back again. "Oh…" was all she said. "Oh."

"And yes," he continued, "I was stubbornly trying to use my right hand when I was getting Sephiroth's bottle, and trying to make my hand catch it as it fell. Instead, somewhere between the time it dropped and the time I finally caught it with my left hand, my right hand had jerked back and made the other bottles drop, which tipped the chemicals…and the whole time I was trying to stop the mess, I was trying to use this blasted hand…" He looked at his gloved hand with disgusted contempt. "I guess egos aren't as easily sliced and diced into manageable pieces as limbs are."

Lavina didn't know what to say, and Damian had run out of words. After a while, he left the apartment to clear his head with a midnight walk, while Lavina was left to ponder what she had learned that night about the man into whom hers and Sephiroth's lives had been entrusted.

* * *

_A Turk who can't shoot a gun or wield any weapon…_ she thought. _One that was even kicked out of __**surveillance**__ because he couldn't even properly work a computer console…that's who's protecting us._

Lavina had managed to gather Sephiroth's little body in her arms without waking him, and was rocking him softly as she sorted through her thoughts. Something about the boy's weight was soothing, and the gentle motions of her rocking lulled the both of them into serenity.

_He's a good man…but not a good Turk. _She knew he couldn't get another job. Once a Turk, always a Turk, as the saying went. Being a member of the organization in charge of all the vast company's shady dealings, he probably knew things dangerous enough that the Turks wouldn't allow him to survive to pass them on.

_Hubris…he said…doesn't that usually end in…_

She wouldn't let herself think it.

She had a lot of thoughts running through her head. Were they in danger, as Hojo suspected? Would Hollander go so far to further his career? Or were they still safe, as the Turks assumed? Did the Turks simply not _care_ if they were in trouble and simply brushed them off, not considering them to be worth enough to spare an able man?

"All this fuss over you," she sighed to the peacefully slumbering infant. Sometimes, she wished that he could be a normal infant, in a loving home, with real parents to coddle and cherish him. But, she had reminded herself, wouldn't he have to lose his identity to do that? With Shinra as an omnipresent force, he could not exist as he was without the company; they would find him even if he had not been born here. One with his skills was born to be sought after by those in power. Was it better for him _not_ to be so special? Lavina wasn't sure. How could she wish away who he was when she didn't know?

"What do you think, Seph?" she asked, rhythmically patting his back.

Who could say what he would become? She could feel that his destiny lay on the tip of a long sword stretching out into eternity, poised to fall one way as easily as the other. He would be a great force for either evil or good – of that she was certain; the promise in his eyes gleamed with power both boundless and aimless. She knew that with such power, he could not remain in anonymity for long. He would be forced to do great things. He would be pushed to excel.

Whether by his choosing or not, he would soar.

But for now, his potential was bundled up in a tiny body, like rose petals in a bud. In time, he would bloom, but no one would know his true color or see his heart for years yet.

But flowers didn't bloom beautifully in Midgar. The soil was too barren, the air too poisonous, the water too stale.

And so she came full cycle, wondering if it was right to wish for a better life for this untried little soul.

"Little angel," she sighed. "I hope someday you'll find your wings…and they'll be so big and soft and beautiful and strong. A pair of _wings_…you'd be a true seraph then."

For a moment, she could almost see them.

Her thoughts wandered from Sephiroth and back to Damian. She wasn't sure what she thought of him now. She did not doubt that his heart was in the right place, that he'd give his life like the guard he was expected to be, not because of the job, but because he cared for the fey, mako-eyed baby in his care. He brought smiles and laughter to the bleak prison every day with his shining attitude. Men with that kind of heart, _Turks_ especially, were not to be valued lightly.

But she was in danger. _Sephiroth_ was in danger.

Their lives were in hands that were scarred beyond usage.

She came to the conclusion that she wanted him in her life, and Sephiroth's as well, but not as a guard – just as the man that he was: happy, carefree, laughing Damian.

That wasn't possible. The only reason he was in her life was because he _was_ a guard. If he lost that status, Hojo would view him as a frivolity that would taint his specimen.

"Oh, Gaia, Seph I don't know--"

Someone was in the apartment.

The revelation came slowly, and her first instinct was to attribute the soft footfalls to Damian.

When it finally dawned on her that he had left a while ago, she began to panic.

It took a while to muster the strength to rise from her sitting position, and she was only driven to do so by the fear that whoever was in the room would act before she did. As she stood, however, the chair scooted forward just the barest fraction of an inch, the rubber feet briefly, but very loudly, squawking against the tile.

Tense moments followed. The steps suspiciously stopped, but soon resumed. She couldn't tell whether they were moving towards her or farther away.

She tried to be silent as she slipped Sephiroth back into the cradle, but fear made her stumble, and the noise and jolt of his body wakened the infant. He whimpered once, and Lavina hurriedly shushed him, but it was too late. Before Lavina's panicked soothing could take effect, Sephiroth began to cry.

She froze in horror. The chair scuffle might have escaped the intruder's attention, but Sephiroth's mewling that ever increased in volume could not.

As she already had doubtlessly been discovered, she had nothing to lose by making more noise.

"_Damian_!" she screamed on an impulse. "Damian, _help_!"

She heard the front door slam open as the Turk responded to the call. (_Had he really been standing guard just outside the door the whole time_, she wondered? _Had he really stayed that close even after the things she had said?_)

"Do something!" she shouted through tears of hysterics.

"Get Sephiroth and hide," he commanded as he sprinted to do as commanded.

It was only after she huddled in the farthest corner and folded herself over Sephiroth as a shield, that she remembered the last thing she had seen of Damian out of the corner of her eye before he had disappeared from sight.

Using his _right hand_, he had reached for the gun holstered at his hip, and had fumbled. He could not control his hand enough to grip his own gun.

So she knew that when she heard gunshots seconds later, they weren't Damian's.

* * *

A/N: DON'T PANIC.

Feedback loved. E-hugs to all. :)


	14. The CoverUp

The Marked - Chapter Fourteen 

Someone was shaking her. Vigorously. And she was sore, _so_ sore. Her arms hurt. Her back hurt. Her legs were numb. She couldn't feel her hands. Her neck felt as stiff as if she'd slept on it at a ninety-degree angle. There was too much blood rushing to her head and she felt it flush with uncomfortable warmth and swim in dizziness. Her tongue felt like sandpaper. She was cold. She was disoriented. She saw in white and gray. Someone was saying something she couldn't hear what it was.

"Let…let go…breathe…all right…safe…"

The air suddenly tasted _sweet_. Too cold, too dry, but sweet as ambrosia to her famished lungs. So much of it…so easy to take in…so hard to expel…

"In…out…in…that's the way…"

"…hospital…?"

"No need….doing well…coming around, it seems…"

"…hear me…?"

"…stop shaking…hurting her…"

"…say something, Lavina!"

"…don't push her…come on…just keep breathing…in…out…in…out…atta girl…"

"…you Turks…"

"…know what I'm doing…"

"…_suuuure_…why she's…this mess…"

With time came increasing clarity. Soon after she could breathe (or at least remember doing so) she was beginning to comprehend words in longer strings before her senses were overwhelmed again. The shady figures above her were people, she was quite sure. A woman, (_a nurse? she wondered)_ and a man. A very, _very_ familiar man.

"Has the baby come around yet…?"

"He's fine."

"…_Fine_?!…drugged…"

"…Used to it by now. Hojo…"

The noises were hurting her head; trying to follow the conversation was making her dizzy again. She shook her head with monumental effort and managed something of a groan.

"Rise and shine, beautiful," the man said, touching her hand kindly. "You're coming to very nicely. Breathe, Lavina. Deeper. In…out…in…"

She tried to shake her head away from the respirator, but it only lolled limply to one side, and she had not escaped.

"I know it's no fun, but the oxygen will help get that nasty gas out of your lungs. Come on. Just a little more, I promise. Breathe all that poison out—that's the way!"

It did feel good to expel the dense stuff sitting like lead in her lungs. She could feel the contaminant leaving her body and opening room for fresh, clean, _sweet_ air. She gulped in the oxygen hungrily, and felt herself revive at a rapid pace.

"That's it! Atta girl, Lavina." Damian (she could recognize him now) smiled brilliantly down at her.

"Mr. Nicholai, the paramedics are here." The voice, as she had predicted, belonged to a nurse, who was looking very flustered and angry.

Damian frowned. "They're not needed."

"Hojo insists that they examine his specimen for possible damage."

_The specimen…?_ she wondered. _Damage…? _And then the memories flooded.

The footsteps. The gunshots. Damian running to meet the intruder unarmed.

She remembered a metal cylinder rolling into the dark room where she laid crouched helplessly. She remembered a green smoke that smelled funny. More gunshots…a scream…a _man's_ scream of pain, before all faded to black.

Damian's arm was hastily and poorly bandaged, and she could see the blood seeping through.

_He was hit!_

Damian sensed where her gaze was aimed and hurriedly spoke. "I'm fine!" he insisted before she could cry out in alarm.

Even though she was quite sure he _wasn't_, there was little she could say or do. He was conscious, moving without pain, and acting like his old self. She couldn't protest his wellness when he acted unhurt so terribly flawlessly.

"How did you…"

"Take it easy, I'll tell you another time." He soothed her like she was child. He spoke plainly and gently, carefully not to aggravate her currently disoriented and fragile state of mind.

But there was something else urgently nagging at the back of her mind…

_Sephiroth!_

"Where is he?" she cried, trying to swallow her growing hysterics. "_Where is he?!"_ she shrieked when neither Damian nor the nurse offered any reply.

Damian blinked, not knowing what to say. His jaw dropped a few times in the beginnings of an answer, but it always closed. "Eh…"

"_**Where is Sephiroth?"**_ she demanded through hot tears. She was screaming, she was crying, and she didn't care. If she had been knocked unconscious, if Damian had been hurt, then who had been protecting her baby boy?

"Erm…" Damian tried again, without success.

"He's…he can't be…is he?...he_ can't _be_! __**NO**__**!**_"

"Lavina, listen…"

"_What did they do to him?!_"

"I take it by the insufferable shrieking that Larina has come to her senses?"

There was a smile twitching at the corners of Damian's lips, one that he could only barely restrain. "Yes, Professor. She is quite conscious."

Hojo came into her view, and Lavina shrunk under his withering gaze.

"I take it that she has not, as of yet, regained the use of her arms?"

Damian's voice shook with suppressed laughter. "N-No s-sir. I should th-think not."

_My arms…?_

Hojo's scowl deepened. "Do you have any intension of releasing my specimen, _girl_?" he sneered at her.

_Releasing…?_

Something hummed softly against her chest. "Vee…Vee…Vee-_uh_. Ooooo….'Mian!"

"You can let him go now, Lavina," Damian said. "The danger is past."

_Oh!_

She flushed scarlet with embarrassment as she slid her arms from where they encircled the happy infant and held him to her chest. Damian took Sephiroth from her and handed him to a highly disgruntled Hojo.

"The whole time he was…?"

"You had a death grip on the kid," Damian smiled. "Even after you were knocked unconscious, we couldn't take him from you without snapping your arms off! I've never seen anything so remarkable!"

"…I _what_?"

"We'll talk later, all right? The nurse here is going to take you to your bed and you're going to get a little sleep."

"Will Sephiroth be all right?" she asked worriedly.

"He's as right as rain. A little bruised at most--_man _that was _some_ grip you had on him--but he wasn't bothered at all. He went right on talking like nothing had happened."

"I'm not going to sleep," Lavina said. "Not until you explain what happened."

Damian rubbed the back of his neck in thought. "Is Hojo gone, Joy?"

"Yes," the nurse simply replied.

"Will you guard the door and alert me of any eavesdroppers?"

"I will, sir."

That aside, he turned to her. Before he began explaining, he brushed some stray debris off her body and propped her up against the wall so she was no longer lying on the floor. He didn't seem to be bothered by using his bandaged arm.

She expected him to get to talking once she was properly seated, but instead, he swept her into a warm hug and laughed. "Oh, Lavina, that was _spectacular_! I couldn't have _staged_ it any more perfectly!"

"Wha--?"

"Hojo won't _dare_ to get rid of you now!"

"What did I _do_?"

He unclamped himself from her and sat back, grinning widely. "Even unconscious, you weren't about to let that kid go anywhere. When we found you, you were curled around him in a tight human shield—it took three paramedics to unfold you from around him. And your _grip_ Lavina…Leviathan himself probably couldn't have made you let go!"

"I fail to see how this means anything."

"It means you're the best guard Seph's got!" Damian exploded. "You protected him with everything you had—even knocked senseless! That kind of subconscious loyalty in the face of death is not something Hojo can afford to sacrifice, unhappy as he may be about it. There's not another woman on the _planet_ who would do as much for Sephiroth!"

Lavina thought about it for a while. "So…he's mine?"

"I can promise you Hojo will keep you with the kid until he's a full grown man. You've proved yourself! There's no more danger of him tearing Seph from you!"

_He won't take my baby from me…_

The thought washed Lavina in warmth.

"But you!" she cried. "You're hurt!"

"Oh, this?" he asked, gesturing to the bandage on his arm. Smiling coyly, he grabbed the free end of the bandage and uncoiled it from his arm in a matter of seconds, revealing an unmarred limb. "Ta da!" he said triumphantly, taking a little bow.

"…So you _weren't_ hurt?"

"Nope. The blood is fake. Dramatics, you see. Had to make it look convincing."

"Make _what_ convincing?"

"The cover-up," he said simply.

"…_What_?!"

"Turks take care of their own," he began. "One of my friends happened to see the chemical mess I made in the lab and saw an opportunity to help. He was the attacker."

"And you didn't _tell me_ this was a set-up?" Lavina seethed, her ears turning red.

"I didn't know at the time. He surprised me too. Calm down and let me finish. He dressed as one of Hollander's men and created quite a stir in there. Hojo thinks the mess is Hollander's doing."

"I heard you scream," Lavina protested. "I heard gunshots."

"His gun was loaded with blanks, and I was simply playing the part. Come on, Lavina, don't be bitter!"

"You about gave me a heart attack to cover up a _chemical spill_!"

"It was more than that, Lavina," Damian insisted. "Now that Hojo thinks Hollander's attacking, he'll be even more paranoid about protecting Sephiroth. That means he'll need _you_, as you've proved yourself a better guard than I was. He won't _dare_ to get rid of you in the face of a potential war. Think of the leverage this gives you, Lavina! You have something on Hojo!"

"I think you're overestimating this."

"At the very least, Hojo won't take you from Sephiroth. Wasn't that worth one night of terror?"

Lavina couldn't dispute that. It had been a small price to pay for what she hoped to be long years with the boy she thought of as her own son.

"Now, you can sleep in peace. Hojo's got Seph for the night, and when he brings him back, I'll take care of him. Take it easy for a while. Catch your breath."

Lavina stood on shaky legs, using the wall for support. "No more cover-ups, though," she groaned. "You have to swear."

Damian smiled coyly. "I'll see what I can do about minimizing these kinds of situations."

She took no consolation from his half-promise.

* * *

A/N: I hate this chapter. It's way too anti-climactic, but it is important to the plot. Sorry about that.

Next chapter: Seph's first birthday.


	15. The Beginning of the End of an Era

The Marked - Chapter Fifteen

At eleven months and twenty days since she had been assigned to Sephiroth's care, Lavina realized that soon her little baby would be one year old. She could scarcely believe it, but she couldn't deny that the helpless little infant she once held was very much growing up. He was already crawling proficiently, and had begun to probe his world with innocent curiosity and fearlessness of the dangers that he was ignorant to. She had to find a way to childproof the thousands of dangers that lurked around every corner of the laboratory. His tiny hands had already found too many things that they shouldn't have.

She had a sinking feeling that the locks she installed weren't doing any good. No matter what she did, she still found him with colored hands (she didn't know what in the world could have turned his hands such a lemon yellow), and occasionally with a stolen materia that he thought was cleverly hidden in his mouth. Every once in a while, she would find a stash of knickknacks hidden under her bed: paper clips, pens, pipettes, dust bunnies (which he loved to blow around the room) and other such things. Often, she found important missing items in his little cache of treasures, such as keys or identity cards. Once, he had even swiped Damian's Turk badge. She never knew how he had managed that one.

"He's a clever one," Damian often said. "Maybe a bit…_too_ clever." Much of the Turk's time was now spent protecting Sephiroth from his own naivety.

The boy did know what he was doing. It was evident by the delight he took by stealing things of Hojo's. It was the only form of revenge he knew, and he reveled in it. Once, they had even found the professor's glasses dumped in the toilet.

Hojo did not find this as amusing as Damian and Lavina did.

With every passing day she saw more signs of the boy's budding maturity. He was beginning to pull himself up with his hands and sidle on wobbly feet along the wall, and could sit and crawl indefinitely. His speech was more coherent, and he could clearly communicate what he wanted with his hands and body language if not with his words.

Lavina couldn't believe that this young man was the same helpless infant she had cared for not so very long ago.

"What are we going to do for his birthday?" Damian asked her as she was putting Sephiroth to bed one night.

Lavina made a face. Even after all this time that he had hacked into the security cameras, it still unnerved her to speak so freely when surveillance devices were hanging on her every word.

"What do you suggest?"

He shrugged. "Cake. Ice cream. Presents. Games. Maybe some other little tykes to celebrate with."

"And how do you suggest we do that?"

He sighed. "You don't trust me by now? Gast can sneak in the goodies, and Hollander has two little boys about his age that we could get in here pretty easily. Remember, I'm friends with the shadiest group in Shinra—and we Turks cover each other's backs. I've even got a few that owe me big time." He grinned widely. "Come on, we're specially trained to execute shady operations, this is a cinch!"

Lavina sighed, patting Sephiroth's head and stealing a quick kiss on his forehead before motioning Damian out, turning the lights out and the quiet music on as they left Sephiroth for the night.

"I don't want to say 'no' to this," Lavina lamented.

"Then don't!" Damian flashed his widest and most convincing grin. "It really is that simple!"

Lavina massaged the bridge of her nose with two fingers. "Tell me what you're thinking first."

Lavina had to admit, Damian's plan was well thought out, and there weren't any risks she could think of that weren't covered. That didn't put her at ease. Hojo had a way of foiling the foolproof, as time had proved. Despite Damian's credentials as a Turk and specialized training in the covert arts, something still set her on edge.

"…And the party will be over in time to dress and clean him for bed as usual," he concluded.

"You're crazy."

"Most Turks have to be." Damian winked slyly. "There's a psychological examination to ensure a healthy level of insanity before you're even let in."

Knowing Damian, she didn't doubt it.

"If I say yes…"

"And you will," he interjected confidently.

"…If I say yes," she asserted again, "I want a month, a full month, of absolute serenity. No plans. I want you on extreme safety mode for that long."

A frown tugged at the corners of Damian's lips. "A month is a long time for Seph to go without a little fun…"

"The party is about Seph having fun. The month of peace is about keeping him alive."

Lavina watched as Damian weighed the choices. He tilted his head from side to side as he measured each side of the equation. "Maybe you're waiting a little too long for suspicions to die—even if there are any—which there won't be! Anyways, I did tell you that Hojo won't dare get rid of you, right?"

"I don't want to test that."

"Aw, Lavina, come on…"

"No."

"Show a little faith in me here."

"I gave you two options! Are we having the party or not? Quit trying to weasel around my conditions."

"Well…" he said at last. "He only turns one once."

Lavina swallowed the lump in her throat. He had agreed to her conditions. She couldn't contend with him anymore.

But she still didn't like it.

Not one bit.

* * *

She didn't participate in the preparations, fearing that she would lose her nerve all together, but it was hard to ignore the cake in the refrigerator for chemicals, or the streamers, balloons, party hats, and confetti poppers stored with the pipettes and flasks. She kept hysteria at bay by repeating statements like a broken record. "He means well. Seph will have fun. I want this."

Despite her agreement, she found herself still having to draw limits for Damian. She confiscated a camera, arguing that "no evidence that this ever happened can be allowed to even exist!" He submitted, eventually, but teased her incessantly about a so called "after party" where they'd make a bonfire and ignite the "evidence"—party hats, streamers, and confetti pieces—one by one. "That's your kind of party, eh?" His teasing was good-natured, but it still grated on Lavina's frayed nerves.

Her solace was the peaceful moments with Sephiroth: reading time, bath time, mealtime, and the few precious moments at dusk before bedtime. She found that the boy was an excellent listener (as long as he had something to chew on) and would listen without comment until he became bored, which—if the right toy was provided—would be quite a length of time. She talked to him less like an infant and more like a trusted son every day, confiding in him her worries, hopes, and dreams for his future.

Damian did not disrupt these special moments, claiming that it was "Mommy time".

It was the night before the party, and Lavina was worried sick. As promised, Damian has arranged a convention with several prestigious scientists and made sure Hojo was listed as an honored guest (it was, of course, a hoax—Hojo would go to the address listed and find himself in an empty storehouse where some "scientists" would "educate" him on the effects of blunt force trauma to the head—Damian had opted not to go subtle in honor of his favorite boy's birthday). The convention had even proved to provide more benefits than planned. Several of Sephiroth's mako treatment sessions had to be cancelled so Hojo could work on his speech. The last few days—and hopefully his birthday itself—would be serene and Hojo-free.

Lavina was worried, but also happy. It was a day to celebrate.

She told this to a very sleepy Sephiroth, who was struggling to hold his bright eyes open. He yawned, murmuring quietly and shifting himself into a more comfortable position in her arms.

"You'll meet some boys your age tomorrow." Damian had developed a very simple kidnapping plan that involved toys that made fun noises and lots of candy. Hopefully, they would come without a fuss. She couldn't imagine that they would. "Their names are Genesis and Angeal. Can you say those names?"

"Aaahhh…"

"Gen-e-sis," she gently coached.

"Nee-see."

"An-geal."

"Geeeeeeal…."

"I guess that's close enough." She smiled benevolently down on him and kissed his pale cheek.

"Not 'leepy, Vee-uh…not 'leepy…" he whined. "Plaaay…"

"No, Sephiroth. It's bed time, and tomorrow's a big day for you."

"Not 'leeeeepy!" he yawned.

She kissed him again and rubbed the tip of her nose against his. "You big liar. Come on, time to sleep."

She tucked him under the blankets she had dared to pull from the hidden compartment (now that Hojo was gone, she let some of Damian's daring rub off on her), and turned on the soft classical music. He rolled over onto his stomach and curled into himself, preparing for the night's rest.

"Good night, Sephiroth."

"…'Nye…Vee-uh."

"I love you," she whispered, and then closed the door.

"Vee-uh!" Sephiroth called loudly as soon as the door was shut. "Vee-uh!"

Lavina opened the door a crack, worried. He had never protested once he was down. "Is something the matter?"

"Vee-uh…luv yooou."

Lavina stared at him. "What did you say?"

"Love you!" he said loudly, waving his hands in frustration. "Loooove….youuu…."

"No…no…don't be upset, Seph. I can understand you."

He calmed down with the assurance.

"Good night." It was all Lavina could say.

But he stayed up for hours, singing his newly-learned words.

"Loooooove yooooou…loooooove Vee-uhhhh…loooove 'Meeeee-an…"

Damian laughed when he heard the song, but Lavina could do nothing but stare at the door.

He encircled her waist with his arms and pulled her into him, letting her slide into a dip and supporting her body with his strong hand. He gave her his wounded hand to grasp. "It sounds to me," he said, "like our little baby boy loves us."

And then, without further prologue or explanation, he kissed her, not letting her stand up from her bent-over-backwards position.

She went to bed that night with ears ringing and heart throbbing.

"Our baby boy," Damian had said.

It sounded so…right.

* * *

Damian never came into her room as a matter of respect, but he was all but ready to charge in and rip the covers off Lavina on the morning of Sephiroth's first birthday. At four a.m., he began to pound on her door, calling frantically. "Hurry! He's coming!"

Lavina didn't have time to ask questions, and only thanked Gaia that somehow Damian had gotten prior warning so they could stow the party supplies and dress Sephiroth in his usual gown.

Hojo arrived at four-fifteen, and if he had come a second earlier Lavina was sure they would have been caught. Even the cheerful Damian was breathless as the professor arrived, and his greetings to the man were not as ingenious as usual. Lavina hoped Hojo didn't notice how the Turk's eyes darted around the room, searching for any traces of their plans they had overlooked in the frenzy.

"Good morning," Lavina said. "I thought you had a convention today, sir…?"

"My train leaves in one hour. I came to ensure that my plans for the specimen were in order before I departed."

Damian and Lavina exchanged a look. Lavina didn't dare ask, and even bold Damian struggled with it. "Plans…sir?"

"You have a strong back, boy," Hojo sneered. "Make yourself useful for once in your life and haul up the equipment."

"…Yes…sir." He slunk out of the room without a word, only a worried glance at Lavina.

"Are there…any new orders, sir?" Lavina hesitantly prodded.

"None that concern you, Miss Dratina. Your services are no longer needed. You may pack your things, you leave tomorrow when I return.

Lavina was certain that she hadn't heard correctly. "Sir…?"

"Sephiroth has outgrown the need for a nanny," Hojo continued nonchalantly, checking things off a list on a clipboard.

"I…sir?"

"You are being laid off," he said slowly, accenting each word as if explaining to an imbecile. "Fired. Expelled. Sacked. You are now an _unnecessary_ _asset_ that I will not waste resources on supporting."

"I—"

Hojo sighed, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and began to explain. "As you may not know, tomorrow is the specimen's first birthday."

_I know better than you_! she wanted to scream.

"He is not an infant any longer, and will not be treated as such. He can feed himself, I presume?" When she opened her mouth to say "no" he waved her response aside. "Well, I trust he'll figure it out on his own. Eventually he'll stumble upon the way to do it if no one does it for him. Or…perhaps it's not even relevant. He'll be in the tank anyways, we may as well go back to the IV…"

_The_ _tank_…!

Damian and seven other men entered the room, Damian's weak hand trembling with the weight of the load they carried (and perhaps something else). His face was ashy gray, his lips in a thin, tight line.

_A mako tank_!

In their arms was the metal framework for a full sized mako tank, complete with the wiring and tubing to sustain a human inside the green liquid indefinitely.

"Install it in the back room. I'll be in to supervise shortly."

Damian helplessly complied.

"You're going to _cage him_!" Lavina cried. "In _mako_! You're insane…you _can't_…!"

Hojo slapped her across the face. "I will do as I please, thank you very much. And it should please you that he'll be so contained. You yourself were complaining about how he tends to get into places he shouldn't. He'll be quite safe and _out of my way_ in there."

"You're going to keep him in there like some _animal_ in a cage?"

"He will be released periodically, girl. I have not overlooked that his muscles must be stimulated if he is to grow in strength. Twice a day, he will be taken out for training and study."

"_Training_…! He can't even-!"

"He will be walking soon enough, Marina. Mastery of his strength must begin early if he is to achieve his full potential."

"Giving a weapon to such a young child…!"

"He is not a _child_, Larina," Hojo hissed, eyeing her with an impatient glare. "He is an underdeveloped _deity_. And I will waste none of his valuable developmental time waiting for him to be ready according to the standards of _society_. He was engineered to be exceptional, and he _will_ be _exceptional_. Before he can run, he will be a Swordmaster. Before he can talk, he will be a master of the sciences. _He_. _**Will**_. _Be_. A. _**God**_."

Lavina could say nothing. She felt dangerously calm…so numb and cold…

"Ah, here's Sephiroth's new caretaker now. Sera, you can go meet your new charge if you'd like…oh, don't worry, he won't take up much of your time, just a check-up once daily should be fine—"

Lavina didn't even look at the woman. The calm was gone, and underneath it, rage was exposed. She couldn't contain herself any longer. Before she knew what had happened, she had the woman pinned against the wall, her hands locked around that slender neck, glaring into frightened eyes that she couldn't make out through the crimson haze.

"You…will…not…_touch_…him….!"

Damian was the one to pry her from the assistant, encircling her with his strong arms, holding her wrists so she couldn't use them to lash out at the woman. Maybe it wasn't her fault, a small voice at the back of Lavina's mind reasoned. Maybe Hojo's making her do this. Just like me… But she stilled the reasoning before it got too far. Neither she nor a thousand caretakers could have a prayer of loving Sephiroth like she did.

She kicked, she hit, she bit, she screamed like a child, anything, _anything_ to keep that woman from laying her hands on _**her**__ son_.

_And they're taking him away from me…_

She stopped kicking as reality set in, stopped thrashing in her bloodlust to strangle the new assistant, and became limp in Damian's arms.

"…good thing she'll be gone tomorrow," Hojo spat. "She's lucky I don't have her thrown to the streets right this instant!"

"It's the shock, sir," Damian defended weakly. "The change in routine…she…doesn't handle it well."

"To think I let such a deranged woman near my prize specimen…she's been nothing but trouble! Someone call the Turks! I want her restrained immediately."

Damian gently slid her into a chair in her meager bedroom and sorrowfully handcuffed her hands behind her. "Stay for now," he whispered. "I'll handle this."

Not three moments later, he returned, with Hojo still doling out orders in the background. Gently, he laid a sleeping Sephiroth on her lap and unbound her hands so she could share some time with her little son.

Without a word, without tears, Lavina curled up with Sephiroth in her bed and rocked him back and forth, singing a lullaby and not caring if Hojo heard.

It was over anyway.

Damian returned when Hojo had gone and the tank was installed. It was around midday, and he had brought with him a small lunch of sandwiches in consideration of the hour. "We have all day without Hojo," Damian said. "He's gone to the convention."

"This isn't the way I wanted Seph's birthday to go." She rose from the bed, still holding Sephiroth, and began to wander around the laboratory aimlessly.

"We don't have much time, so we'll have to get started."

"That's the spirit," Damian agreed. "I'll get the cake and streamers—"

"Not the party," Lavina said. "We're escaping. Tonight. Before Hojo returns. I won't let them take Sephiroth's life away from him."

Damian looked at her for a long time, thinking. "You are sure?"

"Positive."

He rubbed the back of his head with his good hand. "You're the one who usually speaks sense." He sighed, deeply, and shrugged. "My family in Wutai…they'll take you in. I can escort you there. Maybe if you'll let me we—" he stopped abruptly.

"I'll get us out of here somehow, I swear."

Lavina nodded and let him enter another room to plan. She didn't want to think of another reality that was staring her, plain as daylight, in the face.

If she left with Sephiroth, some things must be sacrificed.

She looked into the face of her innocent child and prayed she would have the strength to give it when she was called to do so.

"For you, love," she whispered. "For us."

* * *

A/N: Is flutist girl dead? Probably. Last few months have been hell. But...details aside, I'm back, and I plan to stay. Sorry my writing is a little rough around the edges...it's been a while and I've let myself get rusty...

Next chapter will be action packed, so tune in! :D


	16. Beyond the Threshold

The Marked - Chapter Sixteen

Lavina knew that Sephiroth suspected something. As darkness fell, she fed him a slice of the uneaten birthday cake. The boy prodded it with his fingers, as he always did, before grabbing a fistful and putting it in his mouth. He giggled with pleasure, and offered a sopping handful of cake to Lavina and Damian. The fact that they wouldn't partake set him on edge. He couldn't understand why she and Damian wouldn't play with him, or why they wouldn't smile or laugh at his funny faces. He couldn't understand concepts like danger, fear, or hurt, but he knew that something was _bad_.

He was in such an agitated mood by the change that they had to force him to finish his cake, because he also didn't understand that in the icing was a drug that would ensure he slept peacefully—more importantly, silently—throughout the course of the escape.

Lavina gravely dressed the boy in his warmest clothes, then swaddled him in a blanket. "Sephiroth," she whispered. "Do you love Vee-Uh?"

He yawned, almost too tired to reply. "Love Vee-Uh….fooor _eber_!"

The words brought tears to her eyes. She wondered if he knew what the words he just spoke meant. She prayed that he did.

When his eyes slid shut, what had just been said felt sinisterly like a goodbye.

Brushing such thoughts away, she gathered Sephiroth in her arms and stopped just before the door of their prison, scared to pass beyond.

"Don't look back," Damian said. "Just forward."

* * *

_She arrived at the threshold to Hojo's laboratory without really realizing that she had been instinctively drawn there. She was shocked to find her hand on the doorknob, and even more startled when it turned without her exerting any force on it. Quickly, she ducked to the side just as the door was ripped open from the inside. _

_"No…No! Hojo you can't…stop it! Stop it, please….give me my son!"_

_"Get her out of here, she's clearly lost her senses."_

_"No! Give me my son…let me hold him…please, just once!" _

_Six or seven smartly dressed Turks came out the door, paying no heed to Lavina, who cowered behind the open door. Between them was dragged a brunette woman in a hospital gown, struggling against the hands that held her, not even afraid of the guns they sometimes pressed to her temple or throat. _

_It froze Lavina's blood to see the kind, gentle Dr. Crescent so desperate, so torn and beaten. Her hair was disheveled, her face without the soft rose tint of life, so milky pale and transparent that she might have been an animated cadaver. Tears streamed from her dead eyes, the only spark behind the amber depths fueled by sheer desperation. Her hands, trembling, reached out toward the room, grappling thin air as she choked in her shallow breaths. She was too weak to support herself, and was dragged roughly and without consideration for her condition. Still, she fought against the strong hands that seized her with every last spark of life she had in her dying body, and would fight until the Turks disposed of her or she was spent of her life's energy._

_Lavina stayed hidden by the door, frozen, only able to watch as Lucrecia was carried away, knowing that she would be disposed of now that she had completed her sole task of carrying and bearing the child of the Jenova Project. Now, she was useless, and would be discarded as a broken tool that had outlived its purpose._

_Lucrecia knew this, Lavina saw it in her eyes, and yet she did not plead for her life, only asked to hold her tiny son once before she went to meet her fate._

_The woman looked through her veil of matted hair to meet Lavina's eyes directly. Lavina didn't breathe, worried that perhaps the woman would betray her to the Turks._

_Instead, she left Lavina with one last broken plea._

_"Please…my son…save my son…"_

_The Turks paid no attention to who their captive was addressing, probably thinking her too far gone in the fires of insanity and delirium to be salvaged, or else that she was calling to her coworkers who moved monotonously around her. None of the other doctors paid any heed to the woman or the Turks who dragged her away, not even sparing her a sympathetic glance. Perhaps, to those whom she had known and worked with, she had been dead ever since she had conceived the fated child. _

_"Please," she cried as she disappeared from Lavina's view. "Save him!"_

* * *

Lavina, unable to deny this woman her final request, nodded despite herself.

She took a deep breath, summoned her courage, and stepped beyond the threshold of the laboratory with her head held high.

"For you, Sephiroth," she whispered to the sleeping child once more. "For us."

And then she closed the door on that chapter in her and Sephiroth's lives forever.

* * *

A/N: And I do have the nerve to post after I've been away for so long.

This story is not dead. I've been writing (some of my other works have been updated pretty regularly). Why the hiatus on this story? It's complicated. Call it writer's-[insert something stronger than block. Writer's cement prison without windows? Writer's tomb?] Essentially, a lot has happened in the last few months. I'll spare you the details, as much for the sakes of your boredom as for my sanity. The point of the story is, Broken Wings and the stories that branch from it (this one included, along with Motherland) are not dead. They will continue.

...so...

Yeah.

Yes, the part in itallics is a direct copy from a previous chapter. I picked that flashback on purpose, and you will see why in a few chapters. Next chapter: the escape. May be a while, because it will be _intense_, and I have to do it _right._


	17. The Traitor

The Marked: Chapter Seventeen

"Quickly, Lavina," Damian urged. "We don't have much time."

She nodded and followed him down the emergency stairs. She hesitated at the top. Damian wasn't even trying to muffle the sounds of his loud footfalls on the metal stairs. The loud sound against the stillness of the nearly vacant building startled her. "How are we getting out?"

Damian turned to look back, surprised that she had not followed. "The fire exits."

"Isn't that a little…obvious?"

Damian shook his head and extended his hand up to her. "Right now we just need to run. We don't have time to be subtle. I have a friend that will cover for us."

"You're sure?" She ran through all the types of securities that she knew ShinRa had, even at night. Cameras, voice bugs, guards, and laser sensors all came to mind, and maybe there were some things that she didn't even know about.

Damian stretched his hand out farther. "Trust me, Lavina. Right now all you have to do is run. Leave the rest to me."

She stepped down onto the first step, wincing at the noise. Damian seized her hand and pulled her quickly down. Before she knew it, they were sprinting. Her sides burned, the arm that clenched Sephiroth was sore, and she could barely draw breath past her thundering heart.

Damian continued onward, but his face was set in a grim mask, dead focused on the task at hand. When Lavina lagged behind, he silently rook Sephiroth to relieve her of the burden.

They came to a stop at the door that led to the fifth floor, and only then did Damian let Lavina rest. Lavina bent over with her hands on her knees, panting, her face flushed crimson as she coughed. She didn't know exactly how many flights they had descended; she had lost count at fifteen, and she knew that Hojo's office was higher up in the ShinRa building.

"I'm sorry to push you like that," Damian said.

Lavina waved it away, but couldn't catch her breath enough to assure him that it had been all right.

"Unfortunately, that was the easy part," he said. "I don't dare take these stairs down any further – security is tighter, and they're not Turks so I can't collaborate with them."

Lavina rose to standing and held out her arms to take Sephiroth back. The sedative had done its job well; the child slept soundly despite the bumpy run.

"How are we leaving? Through the front door?"

Damian laughed, but it was without humor. "No, that's _too_ obvious. In the basement they have some old vehicles stored. They're beat up old things, but no one will miss them and because they don't have the newer bugs on them they'll be harder to track. They should get you to Junon at least. I have a friend who can take you by boat to Gongaga, where you can stay until things blow over, and then you can make your way to Wutai."

"_We_," Lavina corrected. "_We_ are going to go to Junon." He looked at her. "You said _I_ am going." She hesitated when he didn't answer. "We are going together, right?"

Damian bit the inside of his cheek. "Of course," he said, fidgeting. "Slip of the tongue. I…wasn't thinking. Sorry." He cleared his throat. "Now, I'll need you to follow closely and do _everything_ I say, _immediately_ when I say it. Got it?"

"Yes," Lavina said as she took Sephiroth. "Let's go."

Damian cracked the door open and peered outside. "The cameras are off," he commented, "but I can't tell if the bugs are. Best to keep quiet." With that, he stepped into the hallway with Lavina close behind him.

The lights were not off, but they had been dimmed in consideration of the hour. It was just enough for the objects in the hall to cast long, ominous shadows. Lavina had never seen Shinra seem so haunted. She felt very small and afraid; her heart raced with the anticipation of an ambush. Damian noticed her hesitancy and took her hand, somewhat awkwardly, in his injured one. She hadn't noticed until then that his other hand was holding his gun at the ready.

Damian stopped abruptly, the halt startling Lavina. He turned and barely more than mouthed the words "Did Sephiroth…?"

Lavina looked down at the child and, in horror, felt the child shift. With such a heavy sedative, he should have been motionless for hours more, and yet he was moving. Only slightly, but it was still a sign that he was beginning to wake. They didn't have much time until he would be conscious enough to wake up should there be a noise or if he was jostled.

In the silence, they heard the footsteps of a guard approaching them.

Lavina had the sense not to scream but hysteria was taking over. "What do we do?" she rasped.

Damian pulled open the first door he found that was unlocked. "Get in. Careful, there may be cameras."

Lavina quickly obeyed. She left the door open just a crack so she could hear what was going on and crouched in the shadow of the door, curling up to make herself as small as possible.

"Damian Nicholai?" A man's voice from down the hall asked. "Is that you?"

Damian breathed out in such relief that Lavina could hear him from the few yards he had walked. "Oh, Eldon, I'm so glad it's you! I could use a friend right now!"

* * *

Eldon had been on his way home for the night; he had been up late on a mission and had just finished checking in. He had just stepped onto the fifth floor to take the elevator that would take him to where he had parked his car, when who should he have run into but Damian Nicholai.

"Good evening, Damian," Eldon said, struggling to keep his voice cordial. "Haven't seen you around for a while. Are you still babysitting Jenova's little lab rat?"

"Oh come on, El, the kid's not so bad. You might even like him if you gave him a chance."

"Hn," Eldon said. "If he isn't so bad, then why is he locked up like an animal?"

"Oh, you know 'ol Hojo. Possessive and paranoid as always. Gotta hand it to the guy though, that kid is worth protecting. I'm telling you, he's really something. How's your job going?"

Eldon could not help the pride from seeping into his voice. "I was promoted. I'm of higher rank than you now, Nicholai."

Damian laughed and clapped Eldon on the shoulder. "Congrats, man! You deserve it! You get to go on full-fledged missions now? Well, I'm happy for you. That's just swell."

Damian did not seem to comprehend the disdain in his voice, and it irked Eldon. The fool was too jovial to notice anything other than happy and bright things…it was one among his many, _many_ flaws.

That fool of a Turk simply did not know his place; he never had. And now that it was official that Damian was beneath him, the crippled Turk didn't even give Eldon the satisfaction of seeing defeat on that imbecile's grinning face.

"Hey, El, do you think you could do me a favor?"

Eldon's scowl grew. That was the _last_ thing he wanted.

"Come on old pal, for old times' sake?"

Eldon rubbed the bridge of his nose in irritation. "What is it?"

"Well…El, do you have a son?"

Eldon narrowed his eyes. "Why would I?"

"Eh…just asking. Because you know, imagine for a moment that you did have a son, would you want him raised in a laboratory by an insane, masochistic scientist?"

Eldon stared at Damian blankly. "You are trying to escape with that demon-spawn. Damian, what kind of foolhardy-"

"Hojo's going to put him in a _tank_, Eldon," Damian cried. "And just _leave_ him there. He'll only be taken out to be experimented on…think about what that means! The few hours a day that he _is_ conscious will be the ones that he'll wish that he wasn't!"

"It is neither of our concerns. You are not the _thing's_ father, Damian, you have no right to say what will or won't be done to the child."

"_I'm the closest thing to a father that the kid has!_" Damian roared. "And if I don't do something, _no one_ will!"

Eldon watched in cool amusement at the man. He had seldom seen the Turk so passionate – he had always been light and jovial. Eldon was mildly surprised that he had the capacity to take anything seriously at all.

This monster meant a lot to Damian, Eldon realized.

In a room just a few feet behind him, Damian heard a baby yawn, followed by a woman hushing the child frantically but as quietly as she could.

He was really doing it. Eldon couldn't hold back a smile. The moron was really going to do it.

Damian saw Eldon's smile and relaxed, taking it as acceptance of his request. "You'll help us, then?"

Eldon thought for a long time, lost in memories. He and Damian had trained for the Turks together, and Damian had become the immediate favorite. Though Eldon spent long hours in solitary training on the side while Damian went out to enjoy himself, Eldon had never been able to best him. Damian made his way through training with a light heart and that ridiculous grin always plastered on his face, seeming to never take anything seriously. Again, Eldon's focus and determination would not pull him ahead of Damian.

Damian had always been _just_ above Eldon in rank. No matter what Eldon did, he was always overshadowed by the grinning fool prodigy.

When Damian's hand had been wounded, Eldon thought for sure that he would be able to surpass him at long last, but no…it was months of the supervisors wasting time and resources to keep him in the ranks before they gave up.

And now, when Eldon had finally been given the position he deserved (_above_ Damian), the fool did not have the sense to be wounded. There was no satisfaction for Eldon when he could not rub it in his inferior's face.

"Oh, I'll help you all right," Eldon said.

Damian laughed and gave Eldon a big hug. "I knew you would! Thanks so much, man. I owe you one, big time! Just keep them off our tail?"

"I will. Go. Get out of here, you big oaf." It had been meant as an insult, but Damian seemed to take it as some sort of term of endearment.

Eldon let him linger in his ignorance.

Damian extended a hand behind the door to pull out a woman that clenched a bundle to her chest. "Thank you, Eldon," the woman said. "Sephiroth owes you his life."

"Go," he said. And they left.

As soon as they had disappeared around the corner, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket. Vengeance, at last, was his.

"Yes, President Shinra, I do believe there is a situation that you should be made aware of…."

* * *

A/N: Don't kill me! (dodges tomatoes, knives, and flamethrowers). Erm. I will write as soon as finals are over.

But hey...I'm not dead!


	18. The Parting

Chapter Eighteen: The Parting

Whatever Eldon had done, he had done it well. The trio did not see anyone throughout their voyage of the halls.

In a way, it only unsettled Lavina more. It was _too_ abnormal for the building to be as empty as it was, even at night. Her frayed nerves screamed that surely there was someone there, waiting in ambush behind just the next corner.

She held Sephiroth tighter, and the child moaned in protest. He was waking, and quickly. She breathily hummed a tune and tried to bounce him soothingly, but it was hard to escape and lull him back to sleep at the same time.

Damian led her steadily onward, looking sternly forward.

They made it to an elevator at long last, and they both sighed in relief as the doors shut them in. Lavina leaned back against the wall and forced herself to breathe deeply. Damian was leaned forward against the door, clutching his heart with his scarred right hand.

"Is the kid okay?" Damian asked, still bent over as he caught his breath.

"Yeah. He's waking up but if we're quick…"

"We will be. This elevator will take us right to the basement." He sighed and gave a small, bitter chuckle. "It will be…over soon." He said it sadly, and Lavina's blood ran cold.

_It will be over soon._

"Mind if I see the little tyke?" Damian said, holding out his hands.

Lavina silently handed him over.

The rest of the ride was spent in heavy silence. Even Sephiroth had stilled and slipped back into a deep sleep. Damian was uncharacteristically grave. He took the little hand in his own and stood motionless, eyes closed, holding it for a long time. When he opened his eyes, he stroked his thin silver hair and whispered words so quietly that Lavina could not hear them.

"You are worth it," was all she caught of what Damian said.

When the door opened, Damian handed Sephiroth back to Lavina.

"It's time." He kept his eyes averted as he said it.

* * *

They could see their escape now. Vehicles – old, rusted, but seemingly usable – were lined up in rows behind a barred gate taller than Damian and Vivian combined. A large tunnel in the concrete was their exit – a gaping maw leading into blackness.

A gate sectioned off the vehicles – heavy vertical bars of steel thicker than her wrists standing as the final barrier between the trio and their freedom.

Damian hurriedly punched in a code and then swiped his Turk ID badge, and the lock yielded, the door opening with a groan that echoed through the cavern. "Go," he said as he pulled the door open, gesturing for Vivian to go before him.

It was done so quickly that she never could have seen it coming. She could not comprehend what had happened, not for several moments.

She heard the gate slam closed.

She heard the lock seal her out.

She did not feel Damian beside her.

Lavina turned. "D-damian…?" she asked. "What are you d-d-doing…?"

"Go." His knees buckled, and he held to the bars to keep himself upright. His face, however, was locked in a passive mask. "You have to hurry, they'll be here any minute."

Lavina did not move. "Damian?" she asked again, quietly. Then, after several painful beats of silence, realization dawned on her, and she screamed, "_Damian_!"

"Hush, Lavina, they'll hear you! Think of Sephiroth! This is the way it has to be!"

"_No!_"

Damian reached through the bars and clamped his hand over her mouth, but he could not stop her from screaming. "Lavina, please," he pleaded. "Think of our boy. He has to be free. That's what we want, more than _anything_."

Lavina's muted cries did not stop, and tears fell onto Damian's hand. "Can't," she choked past his hand. "_…Can't…_!"

"You _can_!" Damian said. For a moment, all the sorrow drained from his face, and on his lips was the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. His eyes glowed as he reached his other hand through the bars, cupping her face in his hands, drying her tears with his thumb.

Lavina leapt forward, and through the bars, their lips could just barely meet. It was enough. Damian's arms could reach through the bars to hold her tight, with little Sephiroth cradled between their racing hearts, and it was all that mattered. In the solitude of the abandoned garage, all the emotions that had been forbidden in Hojo's laboratory spilled freely. For one moment, they shared a love vast enough to span an eternity.

They kissed until they could breathe no longer. Gradually, Lavina's cries quieted to whimpers. Damian hushed her, stroked her jaw and smoothed her hair, and lovingly soothed her into silence.

Breathless, they both leaned against the bars, their foreheads touching. "Lavina," Damian said. "You have to get to Wutai. My family will keep you safe. I will lead them off your trail, and join you when I can."

"And we'll be a family," Lavina finished. "You, Sephiroth, and I." It came out in a rush. "Won't we?" she asked.

Damian pulled a hand away and slipped it into his pocket. "I wasn't sure whether I should give this to you."

He uncurled his fingers, and resting in his wounded palm was a golden ring – a band made of two strands intricately and inseparably wound together. The diamond was small and modest, but it seemed to Lavina that it was in the shape of a wing.

"As long as I have the breath to say anything about it," Damian said, gingerly slipping the ring onto her left ring finger, hesitantly pressing it just past her nail, "the three of us will be a family."

Lavina took the band and pushed it all the way on. She left her hands enfolded in his for many long breaths.

Sephiroth yawned loudly. "Vee!…'Mian!"

"Hey, sport," Damian said, running his fingers through the boy's silken hair one last time. "You mind your mother, now. Daddy has something he has to do. Can you do that for me?"

"Daddy…" Sephiroth said slowly, trying out the new word. "_Daaaaaaady_…."

Damian laughed softly. "Huh," he said as he drew away. "Never thought I'd be called that." He looked at Lavina with glistening eyes. "It feels…right."

"It _is_ right," Lavina said.

That was when the sirens began, and suddenly their world flashed red. Sephiroth began to wail, frightened by the noise, and Lavina's frantic attempts to calm him were in vain.

"Go, now," Damian said. "I'll follow."

"You'll come for us! You'll make me your bride!" Lavina demanded, screaming over the sirens.

"Yes," Damian said. "Go!"

"_Swear it!_"

Damian paused, blinked several times. "I swear," he mouthed at last. "Now _go_!"

Lavina turned, clutching Sephiroth, stumbling toward the nearest vehicle while trying to look back at him for as long as she could.

She opened the door of a vintage pickup truck, the color a brilliant white, and slid Sephiroth inside. Before she got in herself, she yelled one last message to Damian.

"I love you!"

And then they were gone, and Damian began to breathe again.

Behind him he heard hundreds of footsteps, and he slumped against the bars.

"I swear, Lavina," he moaned. "…As long as I live."

When the noise came to a halt, Damian turned to face his fate. An entire unit of the Shinra army had assembled, their guns pointed to keep him in check.

Eldon stood among the ranks, his weapon readied as well.

Damian rubbed the back of his head, looking defeated, wearied. "You too, Eldon?"

"I've waited for this day for a long time, Damian."

"….Ah. I see."

"Not going to try to steal the last laugh?"

Damian smiled, chuckled sadly. "No, Eldon. It's all yours. You caught me, fair and square."

Eldon frowned. "You will not fight me?"

"If it was just you and I, I would surrender," Damian said.

"You still stand up for that demon spawn?" Eldon laughed. "Do you have any idea what Shinra is going to do to you? How long can you fight the Turks? Do you honestly think you can hide anything from us? If you want to protect them, you should beg me for your death, and let their secrets die with you." He smirked darkly. "Not that _that_ will do much good either."

"His name is Sephiroth. He is as human as you and I," Damian said. Slowly, he drew his gun with his right hand. When his grip shook, he stabilized it by holding the gun with both hands. "And he is worth it."

The first shot was fired by Damian. The bullet found its mark with the precision he had once been known for. In a last act of defiance, he shot the gun from Eldon's hand.

But that shot was also his last.

* * *

A/N: I am back. I am rusty. Feedback would be met with glorious praise and jubilation!


	19. Defeat

Chapter Nineteen: Defeat

_The road was all that mattered. In a blur, her world rushed by. It could not go fast enough. The city became the suburbs; the suburbs, the slums; the slums, the wasteland. The miles that she knew she must have traveled seemed an illusion – there were only the barren sands before her, behind her, encompassing her. The road was rough, the sun was searing, the winds were scathing; she did not feel any of it. In all her being there was one thought and one sensation – there was no room for anything else._

_**Run!**_

* * *

He hurt. He hurt all over. He felt bandages, plaster, probes. Beeping, incessant beeping, was the clearest sound he could decipher. His eyes would not focus. His lips would not move. His limbs were heavy. His heart was heavier.

Air, sterile air, was being pushed instantly into his lungs. It was cold, dry. He didn't want it. It tasted of death. He tried to bite on the tube, spit it out, something. The result was a rasping cough that rattled everything in him. It was enough; the tube was taken away.

"You are lucky to be here, Mr. Nicholai. That was quite the stunt you pulled."

It was then that it hit him: he was still alive.

* * *

_She could not take the time to comfort the child. Everything in her was driving her forward, out, away. On some level, she was aware that he was curled up on the floor under the dashboard, perhaps frightened by the roar of the truck or the speed with which they flew across the desert. _

_ She talked to him, but was so absorbed in the task at hand that she could not tell what she was saying. The boy took no comfort; he continued to cry._

_ The needle of the speedometer quivered past the maximum speed, and yet she cursed, she couldn't go fast enough! Something smelled of burning rubber and leaking oil – she couldn't take the time to care. "Go!" she screamed, as she stomped on the gas with all her strength. "_Go!_"_

_ The vehicle lurched forward, black smoke sputtering from the tailpipe._

_ In the back of her mind, she knew she couldn't keep going forever. The car was falling apart. Sephiroth was falling apart. _

She _was falling apart._

_ She grit her teeth and put her weight on the gas._

_ There wasn't time to care._

* * *

"I should be dead," Damian whispered through leaden lips.

"There will be plenty of time for that later, when the authorities are done with you."

Damian was laid down and taped up to an IV and monitors. The door was metal, he noticed, and bolted in three different places. The room, though fairly large, was entirely vacant except for his bed, a single chair, and the medical equipment he was hooked up to. It was far too bright. Everything – his hands, the green sheets – was bleached by the harsh rays of the searing lights.

His ankles and wrists were bound to the rails of the bed, other belts encircling his chest, thighs and waist. He gave a half-hearted jerk, knowing it was futile.

He was not in the hospital.

This was the containment cell they used for interrogations.

He was a prisoner.

"You've done it now, Damian," a voice said. "You've really done it now."

* * *

_She hadn't paid any heed to the incessant beeping, but gradually it had risen to a level where it had caught her attention. The needle on the fuel gage was a fraction of an inch beyond the word "empty"._

_Her mind began to race. How far was the closest town? Did she dare to go into public? Did she have the time to refuel?_

_She looked around frantically. Where was she? There were no landmarks. She had lost track of how much time she had traveled. She didn't know if she had already passed where she had been meant to refuel in her blind haste. There was no telling where the next town was._

_As her eyes traveled, she caught sight of dark, dark shadows of armored vehicles, speedily approaching in her rear-view mirror._

* * *

"Boss?" Damian asked, looking at the man in the chair. He was dressed in the standard Turk uniform, and his eyes were covered by dark glasses. Black hair fell straight to his square jaw.

"Surprised?"

Damian grit his teeth and clenched his fists. "I won't tell you anything."

"Save me the heroics, boy, I'm not going to do anything to you."

Damian sucked in a deep breath and laid his head back against the table. The bed shifted so he was elevated from the ground, halfway between a standing and flat angle.

"Why am I not dead?"

"Sheer dumb luck," the Turk replied, "that Eldon and the army goons are such lousy shots."

"You saved me," Damian insisted.

"I stopped Eldon, that is all. I would hardly say that I saved you."

"What does that mean?"

"You are to be interrogated as to the whereabouts of the girl and the specimen, and then, regardless of whether or not they can get anything from you, you are to be disposed of."

Damian fell quiet, his face smooth except for a furrowed brow. For a long time, neither man spoke.

* * *

_The car was slowing down, sputtering to an inglorious end, and the vehicles were closing in. She was screaming now, and only half aware of it._

_ She heard gunfire. Glass shards nicked the back of her neck as the back window was shattered. A tire blew, and she began to swerve as she lost control. A gust of wind blasted the car, and it was enough to tip her off the road._

_ Glass hit her like rain as they spun down a dune. She leapt off the driver seat and clutched Sephiroth to her, trying to shield him from the glass as they rolled out of control. She was helplessly tossed around, screaming, until the breath was knocked from her when she was slammed against the steering wheel._

_ And then they were out of the car, lying on their backs, bruised and bleeding, staring at the flaming remains of their only means of escape. _

_ And the vehicles were still in pursuit._

* * *

"Boss," Damian said softly. "Did they make it out?"

"The army has mobilized."

"But they escaped?"

The older Turk sighed. "Yes. For now."

There was another long pause. "Is there anything you can do?"

"Don't waste your breath. You're a Turk. You know how it is. Someone has to pay for this."

"I know," Damian said. "I'm just asking…no, I'm _begging_ you…please don't let it be them."

* * *

_Lavina pulled herself to her feet and ran. _

_ She was able to duck behind a dune, pressing Sephiroth's face into her shoulder to stifle his cries. The vehicles pulled to a stop beside her smoldering car, and army men exited, kicking at the remains, talking into a radio._

_ After an eternity, they loaded back into their cars and split up, some continuing down the road, others forging their own trails into the desolate wilderness. A few turned back to return to Midgar._

_ She thought this was good news, until she saw the shadow of a helicopter overhead._

_ She had survived, but they couldn't stay._

_ When the vehicles were out of sight, she turned her face into the setting sun, adjusted Sephiroth on her hip, and began her march._

* * *

Damian watched his boss talk on his cell phone for a long time, a heavy feeling in his heart. He was quiet, never speaking except for small affirmations. His back was to Damian, and he could read nothing from his posture. When the conversation was over, the phone was flipped closed and pocketed.

"They found the car."

Damian sucked in a harsh breath.

"It was on fire, crashed, but there were no bodies inside."

Damian said nothing, but hung his head.

"Surely you realize that you have lost. The woman and the child are on foot in the wasteland. Even if they evade us, there are wild fiends, and there is no food, water, or shelter. Either way, they lose."

There was a lump in Damian's throat that he could not swallow. Despite himself, his shoulders began to heave, his breathing was erratic.

"Damian," the boss said softly. "I'm sorry. I truly am."

"Then _do something_!" Damian wailed. "They'll kill Lavina, and Sephiroth will live the rest of his life like some kind of _animal_!"

The boss blinked, seemingly indifferent to the outburst.

"You can't let them do this," Damian seethed. "I'm here. I stayed knowing full well I would be killed. Let me take the blame, the punishment…just let them live."

"You played a dangerous game, and you lost. Shinra demands justice. You are a Turk, you know what that means." The boss sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers, and then pulled his glasses from his eyes. "There is…one way…that I can spare the girl."

* * *

_She didn't know when she had passed out, but she awoke slowly. The sand was burning her back. Her limbs were slack, she could taste nothing but heat and sand, and her throat felt as if it had been flayed. Cuts – there was blood on her legs, dried and sticky. A fiend, she remembered. Weak, but persistent. Running, sucking in the air as arid as death, falling-_

_ A high, keening wail._

_ The primeval instinct made her clutch Sephiroth's small body to her chest. Yes, he was there, but he was so still. He laid on her chest, breathing in pained puffs. His cheeks were flushed scarlet, and his small body was dripping with sweat. "Vee…vee…" he moaned. There was fear in his wide eyes. "Waaater…"_

_ The plea brought tears to Lavina's eyes. "There is no water, Seph."_

_ "Nooo…"_

_ "Hush, love. We'll…just a little farther and we can…"_

_ Her vision was swimming. Her body was so heavy that she felt like she would sink into the sands. _

_ "Just a little rest and we can…just a little…"_

* * *

Kris looked through the window, unseen by either of the men inside, and his presence only known by one. He looked long and hard into the eyes of the captive, searching with serene melancholy. There was no fear, only great sadness.

They had taken many prisoners into this room. But never one of their own.

"Do you think he deserves this, Evan?" Kris asked.

No answer was offered for a long time. Evan, too, was looking through the one-way glass into the eyes of their former comrade.

"We are Turks," came the reply. "We do what we are told, and we do it without fail. It is not for us to say what is right or wrong."

Kris frowned. "Indeed."

His boss in the containment area below spoke a few words, and the captive's face fell in horror. _"You can't ask me to do that!" _his broken voice sounded through the intercom. "_She…Sephiroth…__**no**_!"

"But he will," Evan said solemnly. "He has no choice."

Evan and Kris watched as gradually the captive's face fell, head hanging, as he accepted his fate. "_Give me time._"

Kris sighed deeply and shook his head. The boss left, leaving the captive in broken, haunted solitude.

"Suppose we weren't Turks," Kris asked. "What would you say then?"

Evan's answer was a long time in coming. "He fought valiantly, but for a hopeless cause."

"A martyr," Kris said.

"You speak treason. Come, we have been summoned. We should not linger."

Evan left the room, but Kris stayed for a moment longer.

"A martyr," Kris said again. "Damian, I never knew you had it in you."

Though Damian would never see it, Kris saluted him. "Goodbye, friend. You fought well, but you fought the wrong foe."

And Kris knew from the look in Damian's eyes that he knew it too. There was no regret. Only sadness.

* * *

_She tried to Sephiroth to her, and his hands clutched her shirt desperately, but she could not grasp him._ _Uncomprehending, she flailed, but suddenly the sensation of his tiny hands on her chest disappeared._

_ She was screaming, even before the full magnitude of the situation hit her._

_ Circled around her stood about fifty Shinra soldiers, weapons all aimed at her. The commander's hands were clamped around her boy, ripping him from her._

_ "No!" she cried, but her voice was too weak. She could not resist; she did not have an ounce of strength left in her. Sephiroth moaned, too weak to fight._

_ "Sephiroth!" she rasped, and reached for him with all her soul, if her hands trembled and failed her. _

_ She was forced to sit, her hands were seized and cuffed behind her back. "My baby!" she cried, her scream piercing the air. Fueled by desperation, she bit the hand that tried to gag her, trying to kick, but only scuffing up sand as she was dragged away by her shoulders._

_ The commander's back was turned to her, but she saw two tiny hands reaching back, toward her._

_ With the last breath she drew before the darkness took her, she screamed._

_**"Give him back! Give my son back!"**_

* * *

_**A/N: Flutist girl promises a happy ending. But this is not the end. Not even close.  
**_


	20. To Break

_**Author's Note: I have promised you a happy ending. __**This is not the ending.**_

Chapter Twenty: To Break

She yelled, she kicked, it did nothing except wound her wrists and ankles on the abrasive straps that bound her down. Her blindfold was wet, some tears even seeping past it to roll down sallow cheeks. She was beyond hoarse. What little voice she had sounded like the breath of the dead, but she would not cease to cry, sometimes in anger and rage, other times in despondency and defeat.

She did not know how long she stayed that way, how many times the hand of the guard struck her or how many voices yelled at her to be silent, but she did not care.

In her chest there was a hole, and she felt like it was eating her alive.

"Seph—i—ro—" she groaned from the bottom of her soul.

And so she spent an eternity in the darkness.

At various points in time they had forced food down her throat, though she tried her hardest to spit it back at her captors. Eventually she lost the strength to struggle – she let them feed her like some kind of animal, let them force water into her. Why they would not simply let her die, she could not fathom.

She was brought to wakefulness – or she assumed it was wakefulness, for it was hard to distinguish between reality, delusion, and nightmare anymore – by a soft round fruit pressed gently to her lips, not in coercion, but a humble offer. "Eat," was the plea. "Please, Lavina."

She let her head loll to the side, too tired to scream or bite anymore, but it was pressed to her lips again. "Eat, love. It's all I have for you," and a soft, warm hand caressed her cheek.

Feeling the tears leak anew, she hesitantly bit into the fruit, the sweet juices of a peach filling her mouth, soothing her parched throat. "There's my girl," the voice encouraged, stroking her jaw and ear as she ate.

"H-h-he loved p-peaches…"

"I know, Lavina. They were Seph's favorite."

"What have they done with him?"

There was no answer. "Eat," he urged again. "Finish it all." He must have taken out the pit, for there was nothing but the sweet flesh of the fruit offered every time she bit down.

"I want to s-s-see you…"

"No, Lavina. I can't take off your blindfold. You trust me, don't you? You know who I am, don't you?"

Lavina let out a soft laugh. "Of course, I'm your bride."

There was a heavy pause, until his hands held her face tenderly and he softly kissed her forehead. "That's right."

"What has happened?" Lavina pleaded. "Please…tell me what they've done with him."

"Hush, he is alive."

"But is he well?"

"He is…in Hojo's care."

Lavina began to sob anew.

"No, Lavina. No more tears. We…we tried. We gave it everything we had, but it wasn't enough. This time. It's…you can't let yourself believe that it's over."

"You…you have a plan then?" she almost didn't dare to let hope creep into her voice.

"Lavina…I-"

"Two minutes," a harsh voice said. "Hurry it up."

Lavina jumped; taken by surprise. "Who's there?"

"It's just a…doctor, Lavina. He…he wants to examine you. You've been through a lot."

"I don't want a doctor. I want Sephiroth back!"

"Lavina, listen to me." His grasp, which had cupped her face tenderly, now turned urgent, desperate. "This is the way it has to be. It's the only hope that Sephiroth has left."

Lavina stilled. "He's not here to examine me, is he?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Lavina, you're hurt," but she heard the lie in his voice.

"Then…why are you saying goodbye?"

Damian enfolded her in his arms, buried his head in her shoulder. She felt wetness seep into the sleeve of her shirt.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"With my life."

"Then…please trust me with Sephiroth's as well, and believe that someday soon, we can be a family."

Lavina smiled. She could feel the rough scar on his palm against her face. She wished she could hold that hand one last time.

"I wouldn't trust my son into anyone else's hands."

"Your time is up. I don't have all day, Mr. Nicholai."

"Very well, then," Damian said, taking her hands and gripping them desperately. "You may begin."

"You will need to leave as I begin the procedure."

"I was promised I could stay."

"Then I expect you to control yourself."

"I understand, doctor."

Lavina's breathing sped up as she felt unfamiliar hands touching her temples. "Will it hurt?" she asked.

"There will be no physical pain, Miss Lavina," the doctor briskly assured her.

"But…he can stay?"

"I will be here the whole time," Damian promised, squeezing her hands. "You won't be alone, I swear."

"How long…will we be apart?"

"Just a short while."

Something hummed, a deep sound that made Lavina's hair stand on end. "What is he doing?" she cried.

"Trust me, please," Damian said. His grip was so tight that his hands trembled.

"I-I—"

The humming was getting closer. She was suddenly gripped by fear. "What is he doing to me?" she wailed. The doctor reached for her head again, but she threw her neck back.

"Restrain her," the doctor said. "I might damage more than intended if she flails about like this."

Damian's lips collided with hers, and she fell still.

"Trust me," he pleaded. "I am here. I won't leave you."

Her cries turned to whimpers. The doctor was reaching for her again. "Damian…" she moaned.

"I love you," he said.

The doctor's hands touched her temples.

There was no physical pain, but Lavina felt her soul being torn asunder.

* * *

_**Author's note: see beginning of chapter._


	21. To Rebuild

Chapter Twenty-One: To Rebuild

Young doctor Malv was the one to present the report to Hojo. He set the file on the desk and slid it to the professor. The professor's cold, bony hands opened it and began to leaf through the papers. "Leandra has been disposed of, then?"

The Turk at Malv's side grit his teeth, something like a feral snarl barely restrained by his grimacing lips. "Lavina is dead," Malv said without emotion. "I administered the lethal injection myself."

"You have evidence of this, I take it?"

"The digital recording is on the disc, professor."

Hojo's eyes narrowed, as if in a challenge, but he put it into his computer. Malv thought that the Turk would surely blow his cover as he watched the proceedings again – her sorrowful submission, evidenced by a bowing of her head, just before all the light and life left her wide, teary eyes.

"And the body?"

"Cremated."

Hojo balked. "You were told to bring it to me. I might have been able to get some use out of her yet."

The Turk swallowed an outburst, and it was noticeable even to Hojo. It was a moment before the Turk could control himself and return to his position at attention. Hojo frowned, but did not comment.

Malv continued, shooting a look to the Turk. "There is evidence enough of her death in that file to satiate you. Her body was returned to her family, and they had her ashes scattered on the wind. She will not interfere with Sephiroth any longer, professor."

The black-eyed professor leaned back in his chair. "I suppose I cannot complain. Who is the Turk?"

Malv motioned for the dark man to come forward. His hair was pure white, with long bangs that concealed one eye. The eye that was revealed was dark, intense amber. He had the face of one descended from Wutai – with thinner, slanted eyes and tight, colorless lips. A long, jagged scar ran from his right temple to his jaw, and another thin, pink scrape beneath his left eye.

"This is Daichi. He has been assigned to Sephiroth's protection."

Hojo examined the man for a long time with disapproving eyes. "The last Turk assigned to my specimen turned out to be an accomplice to that wretched woman."

"Mr. Nicholai has been dishonorably discharged from duty and returned to his home," Malv said. "Daichi will not make the same errors."

Hojo scowled. "See that he does not. His duties begin immediately."

* * *

Malv let Daichi into the laboratory, but would not accompany the Turk inside. "You're on your own now," Malv said. "The Turks can't cover for you again."

"I don't need anything else."

"I would learn from Lavina if I were you. Caution and patience are the answers."

"I am aware."

"Good, then. You have five minutes before security turns on. Make the most of it." And then Malv sealed Daichi inside.

The Turk looked at his surroundings for a long time. Nothing had really changed. Everything was still white or metal. The only sounds were monitors. The air was as stagnant as death.

Alone, curled in his crib, a silver-child rubbed red and swollen eyes with chubby fists. "Vee," he whimpered, sniffling and coughing weakly. "Vee-uh…"

Daichi approached the crib and laid a single hand on the infant's back.

The baby startled, pushing himself up on all fours. Fey, green eyes turned to look at the intruder into his bleak world, and he blinked, unmoving, several times. Slowly, the boy eased himself back into a sitting position, his eyes still locked with Daichi's.

Gradually, light returned to the child's eyes, and they crinkled in glee as he grinned ear to ear. "'Mian!" he shouted. He pulled himself up and wrapped his arms around Daichi's hand, hugging it close to his body. "'Mian!"

Damian smiled and picked up the infant, patting his back as he rocked the child back and forth. "Couldn't fool you, could I, little guy?"

* * *

She was warm, even lying under thin cotton sheets. She was dressed in a satin nightdress, with her hair washed and combed. Her eyes saw colors – blurs at first, and then shapes. A bamboo wardrobe and desk, books in a foreign script stacked on a table of marble. She lay on a mat – firm, but soft – on a wooden floor. Cushions, opulently embroidered, surrounded her body. Light spilled through a translucent screen painted with a design of a phoenix wreathed in flames. There were other paintings of flowers and brides in elaborate attire, and scrolls of fine calligraphy on the walls.

From these sensations, she began.

She rose from the pillows, her head still throbbing. She winced, the light paining her eyes. "Hello?" she called, and her own voice sounded foreign. "Where am I?"

A screen parted, and a woman entered the room. "You are up, child," she said in a voice with an accent strikingly different from her own. "How do you feel?"

"I hurt." The words came out without thought, and she pondered them for a long time. She was not in pain. But something was still wrong. _Something_ hurt, she just didn't know what it was.

The woman sat cross-legged beside her bed. She had salt-and-pepper hair tied back in a tidy bun atop her head. Her face was lined with age, but her eyes were kind, and her smile was gentle. "Tell me what you remember about the past few days, dear."

She thought, and thought long and hard. "I-nothing," she said, ashamed. "My name…this place…I don't know any of it!"

"Hush, child," the woman soothed, taking her hands in her own weathered ones. "You took a terrible fall, and hit your head very hard. Memory may take time to return."

"I don't know this place!" she cried. Though she could not validate it with prior memory, she knew she was in a foreign land. "I…I don't know _you_! This…this isn't right!"

"Child," there was great concern in the woman's eyes. "You are mistaken. This is your home, love. You are betrothed to my son, and so you are my daughter. You live here, in Wutai, with us. We are your family. You belong with us, and we love you. Surely you can _feel_ the truth, if you can't remember it."

She felt warmth from this woman, but no truth. She shook her head, not knowing what to say.

"I am Misuki, and your name is Dawn…"

Her hair stood on end. This was a lie, and she knew it, even if it was not maleficent.

"…you met my son in Midgar…"

_Midgar_. She knew that name; it rang true. She tried it a couple times, tasting it on her tongue. It felt right.

"And he brought you here after he proposed."

This, too, was truth.

"He…he had black hair. And eyes like the forest. And…and a scar…on his hand…" The words came, but the images would not. She clutched her head and bit back a scream. Her heart burned with feelings for this man, but she could not remember a face.

"His name...his _name_…! It was Da…Darin…Darryl…." Tears were streaming down her face now. She desperately grappled for a name, a face, a voice…any memory at all. There was nothing there.

"Daichi," Misuki said softly.

She blinked several times, whispered the word. "No. No, I don't know what it was but it wasn't…I'm so _sure_…!"

"His hair is white," Misuki continued. "Like the driven snow. His eyes are amber. His hands are not scarred, but his face is."

"That's _not right_!"

"Child," she said. "You are terribly hurt. Rest your body, and your mind. You are safe here."

Misuki pressed her shoulder into the pillows and readjusted the covers around her fondly. "Daughter, it hurts to see you in such pain. I will pray to the ancestors that they will speed your recovery." She kissed her forehead softly, and gave a small bow. "I will pray for your spirit as well, that it may be at ease."

She laid among the pillows, too desperate to sleep. She would have given her life at that time for just the smallest glimpse of her fiancé, but there was nothing there.

And behind it all, something in her soul wept for a loss too vast to be truly forgotten.

* * *

She wandered among the gardens for a long time, too restless to lie down any longer. She sought answers from the clear skies, from her reflection in the fountain's waters, but there was nothing. Vast, consuming nothingness. Sometimes she wept, sometimes she paced, and sometimes she dashed through the greenery, her mind responding to a call she did not understand.

Someone needed her. She knew it with all that she was.

She had collapsed on one of the benches, and laid there watching the sunset. The mountains in the distance were foreign. She felt like she was caged in; a prisoner.

"Daughter, what ails you?" The woman she had tentatively accepted as her mother-in-law approached.

"I don't know," she answered truthfully.

"Time will heal," Misuki answered wisely, sitting beside her. "My son, when he returns, he will help you to know what is right."

"…How soon will that be?"

"Daichi serves in the military with Shinra, dear. You must be patient. He will send word as soon as he can."

"_Shinra_," she said the word, and her heart burned. Something was there – something she had lost. For a moment, the name of the place filled her with a hatred that she could not explain.

"Mother," she said, but the word still sounded wrong. "They…Shinra…took something from me."

"You mustn't be bitter about them taking Daichi. He is serving honorably."

"No, no…something else. Something…silver."

Misuki frowned. "Dawn—"

"My name is not Dawn."

Misuki shook her head, but did not argue. "Child, you must be patient with yourself. Answers will come with time."

Neither woman spoke for a long time. Gradually, the sun began to set, and the garden was filled with shadows.

"Let us eat, dear. You must be exhausted. It will do you good to eat and meet the rest of the family."

Slowly, without a word, she followed her towards the garden entrance.

A small shadow darted from one bush to another, upsetting some birds and other critters there. Dawn jumped, but Misuki was not surprised. "Tseng, it is too late for such foolishness."

"Tseng?" Dawn breathed.

"Daichi's nephew. Has he told you of him?"

"A _child_!" she exclaimed.

"Tseng is rather young, yes-"

"No! That's what was left behind at Shinra…a _child_…a silver child…!" Her words became quicker and quicker as her voice rose in volume, her chest tightening painfully.

"Come, Dawn, enough foolishness—"

"A boy…an angel! _My_ angel! _My son!_"

Misuki gripped Dawn's arms. This time her grasp was painful. Her eyes were steely, devoid of emotion. "Enough, child," this time, there was no endearment in the term.

"They've taken him from me! I tried to run…and then…and then…"

"_**Enough, Lavina**_!"

The young woman that Misuki called Dawn stood in the darkness, all her worry, gone. She panted, gasping for breath, clutching her heart. "…That is my name," she whispered. "Lavina."

Misuki's lips tightened into a nearly invisible line. "I misspoke. You remind me of a woman I once knew with that name."

"No…I am Lavina. And that silver child…he is mine."

Misuki closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "Damian was right," she said. "This is going to be very difficult."

* * *

"That is all I can do," Malv said. "You should let her rest now."

Misuki did not leave when the doctor did, staying at the girl's side instead. "She will not remember?"

"She will be like when she got here. Confused, disoriented, likely in hysterics. You must work harder to convince her of the story we practiced. She's strong-willed, but I don't think even she could retain her memories after undergoing the procedure twice.

"I have tried to leave traces of her memories of you. Build on those. She will cling to any familiarity. She will trust you, this time."

Misuki took the hand of the girl, now deeply asleep. She was so caught up in thoughts about her son's last request that she did not hear Malv leave.

_"If she remembers the kid, she will come back to Midgar for him," Damian had said, "and they will kill her. Convince her that she belongs here in Wutai. She's safe here. I…I will stay and look after Sephiroth. Somehow."_

At first she could scarcely believe that her son would submit the woman he loved to such treatment, but with time, she had come to understand.

_"They'll kill her, mother. I have no choice."_

And, slowly, she was coming to accept it.

_"Just don't let her forget," she could hear his voice as clearly as if he was beside her now. "Don't let her forget that she is my bride, and I am coming for her."_

The girl's eyes flickered open, and a breathy groan escaped her lips.

"Good morning, Dawn," Misuki said with a smile. "Are you feeling any better?"

Recognition flickered in her eyes. "M-Mother?" she asked hesitantly.

"That's right, child. I'm so glad you remember."

Misuki could tell that this time was different. Her eyes were blank – there was no question or suspicion in them. She was broken this time, she could see it plain as day.

She prayed that Damian was right, and that they could rebuild her with time.

"Mother," she moaned. "I dreamed of silver angels…"

"That's a lovely dream, Dawn."

"No," she said with tears in her eyes. "Mother, it hurt."


	22. Interlude: With Eyes Like Fire

Interlude: With Eyes like Fire

It had not been his first choice of jobs, but it would put food on the table, he told himself. All the same, as he stood before the entrance of the ShinRa building, he felt very small, and was beginning to regret accepting the offer. The building itself was oppressive, with more floors than he could count. He shook his head and lowered it. It wasn't like it would make any difference once he was inside. Money was money, and he had bills to pay.

He had never been inside the super-company's building until this moment, and for a small-town boy, it was a humbling experience. He tried not to become too preoccupied with the immaculately polished floors or the sheer size of the room, things he had not seen for many long years.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said, approaching one of the counters. The blonde secretary looked up at him over the rims of her glasses, staring at him with impatience and boredom.

"I'm here to see Professor Hojo."

The secretary raised her eyebrows, but pressed a button on the phone. "Your name?" she inquired.

"Lachlan," he said quickly. "Professor Lachlan."

"I don't envy you," she murmured, tapping long fingernails on her desk. "Lachlan to see Hojo," she said into the phone, and then abruptly hung up. "Take the elevator. You'll need this." She handed him a key card without looking at him, suddenly caught up in paperwork. "If you keep him waiting, you'll regret it," she said impatiently when he did not go.

"Good day then, ma'am," the young professor said, and crossed the room to step into the elevator.

As he backed in, he bumped into another man. "Terribly sorry, sir," Lachlan said, fumbling to keep hold of his hat, which had fallen. He bent over to pick up something that had clattered the floor when he had run into the other man, only realizing after he picked it up that it was a gun.

He nearly tossed it away like a hot potato, but thankfully the other man caught it. Though Lachlan had never seen one personally, he knew from the rumors that this man had to be a Turk. He stood with military precision, and was dressed in a smartly pressed, dark suit. His hair was white, and his eyes were piercing amber. Lachlan tried to smile, though he suspected that the action was more awkward than welcoming.

"Professor Lachlan," the Turk said, dipping his head in a formal nod.

The professor put his hands in his pockets and remained quiet for the rest of the ride up. The Turk followed suit, or perhaps set the pattern himself. Lachlan could feel the man's eyes boring into him, and he shifted uncomfortably.

Lachlan fully expected to part ways with the man once he reached the proper floor. This was not to be so. The Turk stepped out of the elevator, never looking back, but not moving beyond the threshold. When the elevator door began to close, he extended his arm back to stop it, still not looking behind him toward Lachlan. "Hojo's laboratory is this way," he said with a level voice.

"Oh…thank you," Lachlan said, not feeling the gratitude, but bound by habit. He slipped his hat from his head and began to wring it in his hands as he followed. This place was cold, he thought, and more than physically. There was a chill in this place that he could not shake from his bones.

He reminded himself of the bills sitting on his kitchen table, gulped, and continued on.

* * *

Lachlan knew he should not fidget, and he especially should put his hat either on his head or in his pocket but not keep playing with it in his hands, but under the Professor's black, hard gaze, these small indulgences were all he could do to keep from rejecting the offer then and there.

"Professor Lachlan," Hojo said, casually skimming his resume with disinterested eyes as he paced. "Graduated with honors from Midgar University last year with multiple degrees in the sciences." He flipped a few pages with long, bony fingers. "Letters of recommendation are…typical. Unimpressive. From…where in the world is _that_? Is that some backwater reactor town? Never mind. Irrelevant, I suppose."

Lachlan twisted his hat to keep the grimace off his face.

"No employment except for filing papers. Hmmm…." The light flashed across the man's thin glasses, an intimidating gesture that was almost as frightening as the inhuman eyes that were behind them. "I will make the assumption that you chose instead to focus on your studies. Grades are…acceptable."

Lachlan bit the inside of his cheek. He had been an _exemplary_ student, and was hoping that would be seen as his strongest qualification. With Hojo being unimpressed, he didn't know what he had to fall back on.

He stood still as the professor flipped through the papers, letting out the occasional disapproving hum or a short, bitter chortle. He wished that Hojo wouldn't pace; he felt as if he was being circled by a hungry vulture.

"Enough," Hojo finally concluded, tossing the papers to the desk. "You are adequate."

"Thank you, sir," he said, hoping it was the right thing to say.

Hojo waved the comment aside disdainfully. He turned to face the young man, all the power of his black gaze focused on Lachlan. "Have you any family?"  
Lachlan was taken aback. "Erm…no, sir. None to speak of."

"Friends?"

"No one…who comes to mind."

"And _women_…what do they think of you?"

The question boggled his mind. For several moments, he stood open-mouthed like a fish. "I…I am frightfully unattractive to them."

"Well, why didn't you put those on your resume?" Hojo said, throwing up his arms and the clipboard he held in exasperation. "Consider yourself hired. Daichi, instruct him on his duties. You may introduce him to the specimen, but I expect that he will be ready for the procedure at noon."

"Yes…professor."

And with that, Hojo was gone.

* * *

Lachlan slumped against the wall, breathing out a breath he had been holding for so long that his chest burned with it.

"We should be going," the white-haired Turk, Daichi, said. "Hojo will not allow you to dawdle, professor."

Lachlan untwisted his hat, ignoring the wrinkles, and slipped it on his head. "Yes, sir."

On the long elevator ride up, he had a chance to consider what he knew about the situation. The ad had been vague and well-hidden; had he not chanced upon the bulletin board in the education department of the university, he would never have seen it. _Educator wanted_, it had read. _Contact head of ShinRa biochemistry department_.

It had not made sense. His interview with his employer had not made sense. It was the first time that he admitted to himself that he had no idea what he had gotten himself into.

"Why would he ask about my family-?"

He had spoken his thoughts aloud, as he sometimes did, not expecting an answer. But one was given, quickly and sharply.

"If you ever find yourself wondering _why_ again, Professor Lachlan, you will find yourself facing serious consequences."

The response from the Turk made him jump. "Just…talking to myself," Lachlan defended.

"You must not even think it," the Turk said, and it seemed to Lachlan that there was an insurmountable sadness in his eyes as he said it. "The only danger in this place comes from questions. Remember it. I will not tell you again."

The men entered a small room with a windowless door. It was bolted twice and further sealed with a retina scanner. Daichi instructed Lachlan to stand before it, and the machine was quickly programmed to recognize him. "You must be prompt, and never stay past the hours set for you. This device will record the hours you are here."

"All right," Lachlan said. _No overtime, at least_, he thought.

"Your actions will be monitored by video camera and voice bugs. Your interactions with the subject are to be limited to the study and the library." Daichi said these things blandly and without thought as he unlocked the two bolts on the door.

"And those interactions will be…?"

"Educating the specimen. There is to be special emphasis on mathematics and the natural sciences, although you must not allow his reading skills and vocabulary to suffer. The Professor has instructed you to start on the seventh grade level, and advance your curriculum as you deem necessary."

"…That's it?"

"You must be exemplary. If the specimen does not advance according to the professor's expectations, you will be blamed."

Lachlan nodded. "One more question."

"Be quick about it."

"…The _specimen_?"

Daichi pulled the key from the lock, and held it at his side, staring at the door for several long seconds. "You must refer to him as such." And then he pushed the door open.

A child stood just inside the doorway.

Lachlan was so taken aback that none of it registered for a long while. It took several seconds for his gaze to travel down far enough to see the small boy. He was not possibly older than six. He stood about at the height of Lachlan's waist and was extremely slender. His small feet were bare against the tile, and a hospital gown hung limply from shoulders barely wide enough to keep it on. The boy's hair was chin-length, neatly trimmed, and no matter how many times Lachlan blinked, he could not shake his first impression that it was _silver_.

His face was blank and pale, and he gazed at Lachlan with his thin lips pressed into a tight line. The boy blinked as he examined the professor with eyes of mako green, his pupils long, slender slits of darkness against the intense pools of color.

"Sephiroth," Daichi said. "This is Professor Lachlan. He is to be your instructor."

The boy did not react except for the smallest twitch at the corner of his lip, as if he were nibbling the inside. "Good afternoon, professor," the boy said, his voice that of a child but with the curtness and formality of an adult.

"Good afternoon. How are you, Sephiroth?" Lachlan asked, unsure whether to speak to him as a child or an adult.

The boy blinked, and he paused before a swift response. "I am well."

The encounter was far beyond surreal. This child was not natural, of that he had no doubt. Even beyond the silver hair and mako eyes, the boy was tainted. Lachlan felt as if the boy was an adult trapped in an underdeveloped body. His mannerisms were mechanical. The way he held himself was militaristic. He may as well have been a seraph carved of ice for all the warmth in his body.

"Your lessons will begin tomorrow, Sephiroth. I need not explain what Hojo expects of you."

"Yes, Master Daichi."

"Say goodbye to your instructor, now, and prepare for your procedure."

"Goodbye Professor Lachlan." The child said it and then turned, making his way into a back room. Daichi stared at the boy for a moment just long enough to be noticeable to Lachlan, and then pulled the door shut, bolting it behind him.

"See that you are here at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning." Unexpectedly, the Turk seized Lachlan's forearm, pulling him in so he could breathe one last warning in his ear in the quietist, harshest whisper.

"_He_ is the one who will pay for your disobedience. If this means nothing to you, then know this: I will avenge any wrong that is done to that child _ten times over_."

With that, Daichi released him, and then left as well, leaving Lachlan with a key in his hand, staring dumbly at the door.

Slowly, he slipped the key into his pocket and continued to the elevator, thinking long and hard about what he _did_ know to try to divert his attention away from what he didn't.

He knew the child was a product of science, who was being kept as a specimen. He was being raised to be some kind of super-human, if Hojo's proposed curriculum level was any indicator. He knew that Daichi had more invested in that boy than he let on. And he knew that tomorrow, he would be thrown in the middle of this mess as the boy's instructor, walking the double-edged sword of pleasing both Daichi, who cared for the boy's welfare, and Professor Hojo, who cared only for his specimen's success.

Despite the reminders not to, he could not keep dangerous questions from entering his mind.

And all of them started with _why_.

Lachlan had seen something behind the steel wall of that child's body. He knew that there was fire behind those fey eyes, something deeply contained, but too integral to his soul to be extinguished.

As he thumbed through the bills on the table as he ate the last of his bread and peanut butter that night, he decided that it didn't matter. He would teach as he had been instructed so he himself could survive. The questions were irrelevant. The situation was strange, but what did it matter to him? Tomorrow, he could buy enough to stock his empty pantry, with enough left over to satiate his creditors for at least a little while longer.

But that night as he slept, he could not forget about those eyes like fire, and on his hands danced a very real and very dangerous heat.

* * *

A/N: I promised I wasn't dead! Or...did I? Well, I'm not. And why was I gone for November? NaNoWriMo. I did it! Whooo!

Anyway...forgive the nastiness as I get back in the hang of writing.


	23. The Prodigy

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Prodigy

He tried to feel like it was a normal workday as he walked into Shinra. He rode the elevator, still finishing what was left of his breakfast with one hand while the other had several textbooks tucked under it. The weight made him unbalanced, and he knew he must have looked like a fool to all the professionals in the place, but he tried to give a smile and a nod to everyone he passed. It was eerie how almost no one responded.

He was grateful for the solitude that the elevator offered, and finished his breakfast there and then hefted the books back into his arms just as the door opened.

Opening the door had been a trick. He tried to balance the books on his knee so he could free one hand to slide the security card to unlock it, and with some wavering it worked, but just as the door swung open, the books tumbled to the ground and into the hallway.

Sephiroth was standing just inside the door, looking at him blankly.

"Ah, good morning, Sephiroth" Lachlan said.

"Good morning, Professor," Sephiroth returned mechanically. His pristine mannerisms were intimidating. It was six in the morning, an hour he swore no child would ever be up to see, and yet he was alert and keen, not a single strand of silver hair out of its place.

"I'll just…be in, then. Why don't you…get some pencils ready for today's lesson?"

The boy silently did as he was asked. Lachlan shuffled to gather the textbooks and then enter the laboratory, pushing the door shut behind him with his foot. He distinctly heard the door bolt, and he grimaced at the sound. The place felt like a cage.

But at the end of the day, he reminded himself, he would walk away with cash in his wallet.

"The study is in here," Sephiroth said, and Lachlan followed the small voice.

The study was small, perhaps a more appropriate size for a large closet than an actual room. In it there was a chalkboard, a table and a chair for him, and a desk for Sephiroth. There were no windows, the walls were white, and the lighting above was harsh. "Ah," Lachlan said, sliding the books onto his table. "Not a very inspiring room to learn in, eh?"

For a moment – but so fast that he couldn't be sure it had been real – amusement danced in those green eyes. Then the boy shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together as he used one finger to point to an object in the corner.

A security camera.

"Oh...oh, right."

Sephiroth climbed into his seat without another word. His legs weren't even long enough to touch the floor.

"Right, shall we begin, then?"

"Your hat's crooked, Professor," Sephiroth said simply, and there was that flash of amusement in his eyes again.

In all the shuffling and stumbling he had done to get up there, his hat had fallen at a very odd angle. He felt flustered. This child was immaculate…what was an oaf like him doing as his teacher?

"Thank you, Sephiroth," he said, taking the hat off all together and placing it on his desk. "Now, are you ready to start?"

Sephiroth did not respond, not even blinking a response. Lachlan cleared his throat and took it as an affirmative.

"Let's start with this one, then," Lachlan said, taking a thick book from the top of the pile and straightening a few dog-eared pages with a frown. "Have you studied any algebra before?"

Sephiroth took the book and began to flip through the first few pages. He blinked, and Lachlan could almost feel the boredom rolling off him.

"How about this, then," Lachlan proposed. "Take the quiz at the end of chapter seven, and I'll try to see where you're at."

Sephiroth pulled a blank sheet of paper and a pencil from his desk and silently went to work.

Lachlan sat in his own chair and had to keep from sighing. For a while he looked at the bland ceiling, listening to the sound of Sephiroth's pencil racing across the page. His hat somehow got into his hands, and he began to twist it one way and then the other. The sounds and the actions became so repetitive that they were lulling, and he did not notice for a moment or two when the sound of Sephiroth's writing stopped.

It made him jump to see the boy standing quietly in front of his desk, assignment in hand.

"Finished already?" Lachlan asked, stunned, as a glance at the clock told him only ten minutes had passed. "…With all of them? Oh! You're here for a calculator, aren't you? I'm sorry, I completely forgot…" he began to dig in his bag, searching for one.

"Calculator?" the boy asked. The question in his voice was surprising.

Lachlan stopped his digging. "You mean you've never used a…"

The boy shook his head and wordlessly held out his assignment.

Lachlan took it, glancing at the rows of tidy calculations and figures. "…They're…correct," he said, putting the paper on the desk. His head was swimming. The textbook had been the one he had used when he was in middle school. Sephiroth had flown through it quickly and accurately, and without the help of a calculator.

What _was_ this child?

"Try the exercises in the last chapter, then."

Though he had come to expect it on some level, he was still astounded when Sephiroth handed him a perfect paper fifteen minutes later.

"Well," Lachlan said, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his fingers. "I will have to get you harder material to work with, in math at least." He grabbed the second book in the stack and thumbed through it. "Let's try some chemistry, then."

Sephiroth tore through all the textbooks without a word, always giving him a paper that proved his was educated far beyond his years. He went through chemistry, biology, physics, physiology, and geometry without as much as a wrinkle in his brow.

"You are…exceptional," Lachlan breathed as he examined the last assignment. The shock had left him, and now he was beginning to be excited by this miracle child. "Remarkable. _Extraordinary_."

Sephiroth lowered his head, looking at his feet.

"I will have to find better books," Lachlan said, looking at the clock. It was not even lunchtime yet, and there was only one book that he had not shown Sephiroth yet. "Ones that will challenge you."

"Yes, Professor."

"What do you say we go through this last one, just to say we did, and then call it a day? You've sure earned it."

Sephiroth blinked, confused. "…Call it a day?"

"I can't teach you until I find harder materials. We'll be done after this one, all right?"

Sephiroth took the book and made his way to his seat, a fresh sheet of paper and a pencil ready to go.

But unlike last time, the room was quiet, the sound of the pencil scratching blatantly missing. When Lachlan looked over to check on him, Sephiroth was staring at the page, eyes wide in wonder.

Surprised, Lachlan made his way to the boy's side. When the boy heard his footsteps, he hurriedly turned the page and picked up his pencil, starting to write.

"Now, none of that," Lachlan said, taking the pencil from his small hand and setting it on the desk. "Let me see what's got you so interested."

"It was nothing, Professor, I'm sorry…"

Lachlan couldn't read the boy's face, because his head was bowed and his silver hair veiled his expression, but he could hear enough. There was fear in his voice. Sephiroth was afraid of him.

Lachlan sunk to his knees beside the desk to get to the boy's level. "Sephiroth," he said, "there's no time limit. I'm glad that you're so interested in something. That's the joy of learning!" He put a hand on the boy's shoulder, which made him jump in alarm. For a moment, they stared at each other, Sephiroth trying as hard to read Lachlan as the professor was trying to understand the boy.

Sephiroth handed the book back to him. "Can I go now?"

Lachlan rubbed the back of his head and stood up, walking to his desk and sitting back down. "All right," he said. "We can be done."

And like that, he was gone.

Lachlan looked at the door for a while, idly flipping pages with his fingers. For a minute, there had been something other than mechanical precision in the child. There had been interest, maybe even wonder. And it had been silenced so quickly, and for no reason – or, at least, for any reason that made sense to Lachlan.

He gathered the textbooks in his arms, righted his hat, and set out for the day. He was still mulling over the day's lesson when a shadow caught his eye.

He managed to keep hold on the wavering tower of texts in his arms, but he couldn't withhold a rather undignified shout of surprise. Daichi materialized quickly, seemingly from nothing. It was an eerie sight.

"Ah, hello Daichi," Lachlan said, trying to blow the rim of his hat from where it had fallen over his eyes without success. "Startled me, there."

"You cannot be so careless," came a cold, curt response.

"Right. I've never been very coordinated and I'm bound to hurt myself someday—"

"I don't care about your _coordination_, Professor." The Turk's hand fell heavily on top of the books, steadying Lachlan's wavering, but also holding the uneasy teacher in his place. "The boy. You must be precise and deliberate in the knowledge you expose him to. There can be no accidents."

"What do you mean?"

Daichi paused, and Lachlan could feel his irritation. "Today he was noticeably excited by something found in one of those books. Hojo's orders are that he be educated in all scientific disciplines, and not favor one over another. Certainly, there is to be no…_passion_."

"That seems to be a bit of a dry and narrow approach to learning, don't you think?" It came out before Lachlan had thought it through, and as soon as it had escaped, he found himself staring into seething eyes, the tower of books suddenly having vanished.

"Firstly, Professor, a _narrow education_, as you say, is the _very least_ of that boy's worries. And secondly, it does not matter what you, or I, or even the boy thinks. Hojo sets the rules here. Sephiroth knows this. You must learn quickly, or I will terminate you before you can bring any harm to him."

Daichi disappeared so quickly that Lachlan was left with chills. He reminded himself three times that a paycheck was waiting for him as he gathered the books.

On the top was the book that had caused the incident.

_World_ _Geography._

Behind the cold exterior of the prodigy and underneath all the rules that chained him, Sephiroth was a just little boy who desperately hungered to see the outside world.

* * *

A/N: Hello...? Anyone still there? I'm not dead...yet!


	24. Geology

Chapter Twenty-Three: Geology

Lachlan tripped over a pile of books as he stepped across the doormat of his apartment. He fell on his face, the books he had been carrying flying from his grip. It was a common problem. He groaned, looking back to see what book had been the culprit this time. _An Anthology on the Ancients and the Promised Land_. He didn't think he had gotten to that one yet.

He drew himself up to a sitting position, staying to look at his home from this new point of view.

It was a small studio apartment in Midgar, humble even by a university student's standards. The lightbulb dangled bare from a wire, giving off a lazy and inconsistent glow. The walls were a pasty green, peeling in some places to reveal brownish sheetrock beneath. Cracks in the paint ran the walls like spider webs. He'd kept the sunlight out with sheets of newspaper on the windows, which he admitted made it look like he lived in an abandoned shack, but he couldn't think of an alternative for the time being. His bed was in one corner, the microwave in another, and the rest of his apartment was stacks and stacks of books. Diplomas hung crookedly from tacks on the walls, the only decorating he could claim to have done.

The one thing he had been good at in life was being a student. He had stayed in school as long as he could, accumulating so many degrees that the school had forced him out so another student could take his place. He wouldn't have minded if student life lasted forever. He exceled there. Now, in the real world, he was just another young adult trying to get by, drowning in college loans and under the pressure to pay the rent and have a little to eat at the end of the day.

"Max," he called. "I brought dinner."

Under the small table that held his microwave, there was a food bowl for the cat he had unofficially adopted. He had initially thought it a bad idea to have a pet. For one, the landlords forbade it, and for another, the money spent on its food could be used for _his_ food. Still, when the tabby had showed up after a storm on his doorstep, soaking wet and mewling miserably, he couldn't say no. Yes, it cost him, but in the end, Max was the only company Lachlan had, and that was worth one less peanut butter sandwich to him.

Max came out from under a hut of collapsed books when he heard the food being poured into his bowl. He crunched contently on the meal while Lachlan pulled out his own dinner – chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and corn – T.V. dinner style.

He ate without really tasting any of it. He paced as he ate, eyes on the floor, looking for books for tomorrow's lesson.

_Geography_. Sephiroth wanted to see the world. Daichi had disapproved of the boy's enthusiasm, but Lachlan wanted to see that spark again. He knew that thrill well – it was why he had remained a student far past his time.

It had been the best part of his job so far. It made the trip into that boy's prison worth it to see that one moment of intrigue.

He would find a way to give that joy to him again.

Somehow.

He hummed as he scanned the books. He pulled out a more difficult math text, as well as standard chemistry and physics textbooks. That would be a step up, and might stretch the boy a little past his limits. If the boy had any, he found himself thinking.

_What a strange, sad child…_

He shook the thought away. He wasn't being paid to sympathize with the boy.

His job was to teach, but he wanted to inspire Sephiroth too. And he thought he had just the book to do the trick.

Daichi was present for the next day's lesson. He sat on a chair in the back corner, beneath the security camera. His presence made Lachlan very uncomfortable. The guard's intense, amber gaze did not leave him the entire time, almost daring him to make another mistake.

He was extremely serious about the boy. It was daunting to teach under such guard. But he reminded himself of the wonderful meal of soup and fresh bread he had bought last night. He hadn't had such things in about a month, and he wasn't about to give it up now.

Lachlan hadn't been trained in elementary education, but he knew that he hadn't seen books like the ones he was giving Sephiroth until at least high school. And he was still having trouble finding things that challenged the boy.

"How old are you?" A question. He knew Daichi would not approve. But the answer was hardly more than a statistic, so perhaps he could get away with it. He deliberately did not look at Daichi to find out if he had.

"Seven," the boy responded curtly, not pausing his writing as he spoke. He was working on trigonometry, and at least was working slower than yesterday, which was the only sign he gave that it was more difficult. His face was composed, but not fully focused on the task at hand. Lachlan didn't miss how his eyes strayed, or how his shoulders occasionally fell in an occasional, silent sigh.

Prodigy or no, Sephiroth was still a child.

"I don't suppose…_kinesthetics _would be an approved area of study?" Lachlan asked Daichi, still trying not to meet his penetrating stare. "As a lab class?"

No answer. None was needed.

Sephiroth murmured something beneath his breath. It sounded like "I get enough of that already."

"Let me check your trigonometry, and then we'll change to something different."

As usual, the problems were all done perfectly in neat, precise handwriting. "I think this is your level," Lachlan said. "We'll stay in this book for a while."

This announcement brought no reaction from the silver-haired boy. He could see the boredom in his eyes. Apparently math was not his favorite subject.

"Enough of math for the day! Let's move on to something a little different."

Lachlan moved three textbooks to get to the one on the bottom of the stack. "Ah, here it is," he said, making a show of revealing it. "Geology!"

A single, silver eyebrow rose. The boy was smart; Lachlan knew that he knew of the trouble his fascination with geography had gotten him in yesterday. There was something in his eyes, like he was just waiting to see what mischief this would cause today.

"Geology." The boy said it without emotion. "The study of the planet."

"Exactly. Have you had any exposure to it before?"

"…No."

"Good then! Something new." Lachlan put the textbook on the boy's desk. Daichi's face also said that he was treading on dangerous ground. He ignored it. He had decided that some risk was worth it to see that fire in the boy again.

"Today I want to study the area of Mideel. What do you know of it so far?"

"Mideel," Sephiroth said slowly."…I don't know anything about it."

"Well, then turn to page 103 for a map. It's an island in the south. Have you found it?"

The boy's fingers deftly flipped through the pages, then skimmed almost reverently over the map until his fingers touched the island. "It's so far," he said. "From Midgar, I mean." His voice wasn't as disengaged as it normally was.

_Good! _Lachlan cheered inwardly. Daichi's frown was growing.

"Mideel is unique from the other continents. The Lifestream is very close to the surface there."

A tiny, breathy, "Huh," came from the boy. His eyes were wider than usual. "Wouldn't that make the area…unstable?" he asked.

"Exactly! Excellent prediction. Mideel sometimes has problems with earthquakes and tremors. Go to chapter 10 in the book, and we'll learn a little more about this."

The lesson continued as usual. Sephiroth listened in silence, and did the questions from the text in neat columns on his paper.

But his eyes were wide and bright. Lachlan knew that the boy was smart enough to keep his fascination in check, but it was there. He saw it in small, subtle signs from the boy.

He hoped his message to the boy was clear.

_I want to show you the world_.

Somehow, he felt that Sephiroth understood. It could never be spoken, but Lachlan's interaction with the boy was much more engaged than yesterday's.

Daichi's face slowly went from angry to passive. His eyes seemed almost sad, and Lachlan wondered why.

At the end of the day, the boy returned the books and gave a curt bow from the waist. "Thank you, Professor Lachlan."

"I will see you tomorrow, Sephiroth."

And with that, the boy left. Daichi remained. As Lachlan gathered his books, the Turk approached, putting a single hand on the man's shoulder.

"You remind me of someone. Someone who was very dear to Sephiroth as an infant. She, too, would not be daunted by Hojo, and subtly rebelled for the sake of the boy." His voice was soft, barely above a whisper, so the camera in the corner would not pick up on their conversation.

Lachlan blinked. "Thank you?" he said, sure that it wasn't the right response.

"I want to show you something. Something that might change your mind about helping the boy like this." Daichi paused, thinking. "Or, it may push you to rebel even more."

"I don't understand."

"You will. Come."

* * *

A/N: I'm glad there are still readers! After a long hiatus, I'm back. To stay, I think.

This segment with Lachlan will be the shortest segment in the book. But we still have a few chapters left, I think.

Reviews are happiness!


	25. The Warrior

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Warrior

Lachlan entered the elevator first, slightly unnerved by the sight. The elevator was glass, and they were far, far above the city. It was at once thrilling, beautiful, and dizzying.

Daichi waved his badge over a scanner, which turned green and chimed softly. He then pushed a button, and they began a steady ascent.

When the doors opened, Lachlan could do nothing but stare.

On the gray wall was printed "Soldier Floor".

"Uh…Daichi? Are you sure you've got the right floor?"

"Positive." Daichi exited the elevator. He didn't turn around for Lachlan to see, but he imagined a slight smirk on the Turk's face.

"Erm…right." There was nothing to do but follow. The only thing he could think of that was worse than being on the soldier floor was being on the soldier floor by himself.

He took a brief moment to think of what he knew about Soldiers. They were, first of all, heroes. No boy that he knew of hadn't played at being Soldier on the playgrounds. They were idols, but more often than not, unreachable ones. Little was actually known, and rumors were rampant. Some said they weren't even human, but that some special surgery turned them into something else. It didn't stop young men from enlisting, forever dreaming of being a Soldier First Class. Few made it that far. Most just disappeared into the ranks and files of the Shinra army.

He supposed he should have felt awed. He was stepping into a world of heroes, after all. But he found more fear in his heart than admiration. After all, no one actually knew anything about them.

Except, of course, that they were lethal warriors.

For the scholar, it was a very daunting thing.

"This way," Daichi said, and Lachlan left his thoughts to return to the real world. They weren't helping him anyway.

Lachlan followed, making a point to not look directly at any of the uniformed men passing by him. Daichi was not affected, and Lachlan thought that he was walking a bit too arrogantly, like he owned the place. A few Soldiers recognized him, calling out or nodding a brief "hello".

"Where exactly are we going?" Lachlan asked, clutching his hat in his sweating hands.

"To see Sephiroth."

"Where?"

"The company training room."

"But Sephiroth would be too young to—"

Lachlan stopped dead in his tracks.

_Impossible! He's too young!_

But a sick feeling in his heart told him that it had to be so.

_A Soldier! At age seven!_

Daichi stopped as well, waiting for Lachlan to follow. When he didn't, he turned to face the scholar.

"Come and see for yourself."

Something told him that he did not want to see this, but he followed anyway.

Lachlan and Daichi arrived at the training room. Through the glass doors, Lachlan saw Sephiroth as he had never dreamed he could be.

He was dressed in Soldier uniform, and Lachlan idly wondered if they'd had to specially make one that small. He had the standard pauldrons, and leather gloves and boots. His sleeveless sweater and pants were blue, and both were baggy, almost dangling off his slender limbs. Around his waist was a belt embossed with the Soldier logo.

He looked just like a Soldier.

Albeit a very small one.

"He is third class," Daichi said. "But in name only. Hojo has not allowed him to go out on assignment."

"That's a relief, I guess."

Lachlan couldn't read the look that Daichi gave him out of the corner of his eye.

"He has been recommended for second class."

Lachlan shook his head. "I don't believe it! What is Shinra thinking, putting that type of label on a _child_? He'll get himself killed!"

"He'll get himself killed, eh?" Daichi was smirking, which made Lachlan very uncomfortable. "Watch. He's just about to start a simulation."

Sephiroth wore a helmet that covered his eyes and ears, putting him in a different world that they two men could not be privy to. Lachlan held his breath as Sephiroth drew a sword from a sheathe across his back. The blade was probably the length of his body, but he held it with ease. He was steady; breathing easily, stance firm, and the barest hint of a confident smirk on his lips as he appraised his virtual enemy.

A computerized voice began the battle with, "Activating combat mode."

And then Sephiroth lunged.

Lachlan was stunned, breathless. He supposed the battle could only have lasted a minute or two, but he saw all that he needed to see to get Daichi's point.

The boy was a warrior. And a better one than Lachlan had ever imagined possible.

The way he moved was like something from a fantasy. His feet glided effortlessly, deft and precise. In the deadly dance, his blade flew, sometimes in a playful stabs or parries, other times in thrusts of lunges too quick to see anything but a silver streak of the blade's path. Though he could not see the enemy that Sephiroth was facing, there was no doubt in mind who the victor was once the boy fell still at last.

Looking at him like that, it was easy to forget that he was only a child.

"Conflict resolved," the computer said.

"Woah," was all that Lachlan could say.

Daichi went into the training room without a word, while Lachlan remained outside. He couldn't hear, but he knew the two exchanged brief greetings. Sephiroth tilted his head again in response to something Daichi said, a small smirk on his face. He removed his helmet and took a ready stance again.

And then Daichi pulled a gun on Sephiroth.

Lachlan reacted in fear, running forward, but only hitting the glass. The door did not open; it had been sealed. The sound of him hitting the glass caught the boy's attention. Sephiroth looked his way for a moment, head slightly tilted in confusion.

Lachlan knew it was stupid. Even if he could get in, how would he stop the two of them? Instead, as Sephiroth drew his sword, he put his hands over his eyes, but found himself peeking through his fingers in morbid, terrified curiosity.

Daichi fired.

Sephiroth's blade flashed.

It was so quick that Lachlan was left dumbfounded. What exactly had happened?

Daichi fired again, and a third time.

The boy's blade flashed twice more.

Lachlan blinked. Maybe he had missed it as he did so.

The third round, Lachlan held his eyes open, determined not to miss it.

Sephiroth was deflecting the bullets with his _sword_.

Lachlan's mouth fell open. "Impossible…"

Sephiroth humored the Turk for a while, batting at the bullets as easily as if he were swatting flies. He was smiling – something Lachlan had never seen him do before. He looked free, unrestrained as he and his sword danced together. Lachlan sadly thought that this was probably the most freedom the boy had ever enjoyed.

After the boy tired of the practice, he brought it to an end by sidestepping behind Daichi and pressing the tip of his blade into the Turk's lower back, though not hard enough to draw blood. Daichi dropped the gun in defeat and left the boy to his practice.

Daichi headed past Lachlan and toward the elevators. Lachlan followed without a word.

"He bested his own swordmasters a year ago. There is no one except for the higher ranked Soldiers who can even present a challenge for him."

"Oh," Lachlan said. "Erm…wow."

"How do you feel about him now?" Daichi asked. "Do you see your pupil differently?"

Lachlan did, but he wasn't sure just how yet. Sephiroth was incredible. Only at age seven, and he was nearly unrivaled. It was at once a miracle and a curse.

The disturbing thought came to him: had Sephiroth ever killed another human? Had his innocence already been stripped away? He didn't dare to ask.

So what was Sephiroth? A prodigy? A threat? A _monster_?

They returned to the ground floor, which Lachlan assumed was his cue to leave for the day. His thoughts were heavy and tangled.

"He is a child," Lachlan said, still half undecided himself. "And…if no one else will, then I will try to treat him like one. He deserves a childhood."

Daichi sighed. "Once, I thought like you too. But time here will show you that it is impossible."

"I don't want to believe it," Lachlan said.

There was great sadness in Daichi's eyes as he said, "Neither do I."

* * *

A/N: Only in FFVII do swords beat guns. ;P

Thank you for your support! The reviews have brought me much joy.


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